THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINA 


THE  COLLECTION  OF 
NORTH  CAROLINIANA 

FROM  THE  UBRARY  OF 

School  for  the  Deaf, 
Morgan ton 


GB 

H523s 
C.2 


00006774671 


This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped 
below  unless  recalled  sooner.    It  may  be 
renewed  only  once  and  must  be  brought  to 
the  North  Carolina  Collection  for  renewal. 


Form  No.  A-369 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 


O.    UENKY 


O.  HENRY 
BIOGRAPHY 


BY 

C.  ALPHONSO  SMITH 

POE  PB0FKS80R  OF  ENGLISH  IN  THE 

TJNIVEB3ITT  OF  VIRGINIA 

AUTHOR  OF 

"what  can  literature  DO  FOR  MB,"  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


Garden  City  New  York 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1916 


Copyright,  1916,  by 

DOUBLEDAY,  PaGE  &  COMPANY 

All  rights  reserved,  including  that  of 

translation  into  foreign  languaget, 

including  the  Scandinavian 


CO 


PREFACE 

MY  CHIEF  indebtedness  in  the  preparation  of  this 
book  is  to  Mr.  Arthur  W.  Page,  of  Garden  City,  New 
York.  He  has  not  only  put  at  my  disposal  all  of 
the  material  collected  by  the  late  Harry  Peyton  Steger 
but  has  been  unfailing  in  helpful  suggestion  and  in 
practical  cooperation.  To  the  authorities  of  the  Li- 
brary of  Congress  and  of  the  Free  Public  Library  of 
Greensboro,  North  Carolina,  I  am  also  indebted  for 
services  cheerfully  and  effectively  rendered.  Others 
from  whom  I  have  received  valuable  oral  or  written 
information  are  mentioned  for  the  most  part  in  the 
pages  that  follow.  Grateful  acknowledgments  are 
due  also  to  Mrs.  J.  Allison  Hodges  and  Mrs.  E.  E. 
MoflStt,  of  Richmond,  Virginia;  Professor  James  C. 
Bardin,  of  the  University  of  Virginia;  Miss  Anna  Porter 
Boyers,  of  Nashville,  Tennessee;  Miss  Bettie  Caldwell, 
Mr.  S.  A.  Kerr,  Mr.  A.  W.  McAlister,  Colonel  James 
T.  Morehead,  Miss  Belle  Swaim,  and  Mrs.  G.  W.  Whit- 
sett,  of  Greensboro;  Mrs.  G.  B.  Bush,  of  Hopkins,  South 
CaroHna;  Mr.  J.  W.  Monget,  of  Baton  Rouge,  Louisi- 
ana; Mr.  George  M.  Bailey,  of  Houston,  Judge  T.  M. 
Paschal,  of  San  Antonio,  Mr.  David  Harrell,  Professor 


PREFACE 

John  A.  Loinax,  Mr.  Ed.  R.  McLean,  Mr.  Herman 
Pressler,  Professor  J.  F.  Royster,  and  Mr.  William  H. 
Stacy,  of  Austin,  Texas;  Mr.  Landon  C.  Bell  and  Mr. 
Howard  P.  Rhoades,  of  Columbus,  Ohio. 


CONTENTS 


PAOB 


Preface     v 

I.    The  Life  and  the  Story S 

II.    Vogue    ....         8 

III.  Ancestry 16 

IV.  Birthplace  and  Early  Years 46 

V.    Ranch  and  City  Life  in  Texas 95 

VI.    The  Shadowed  Years 136 

VII.    Finding  Himself  in  New  York 172 

VIII.    Favourite  Themes =  .     .     .  203 

IX.    Last  Days 246 

Index 253 


ILLUSTRATIONS 
O.  Henry Frontispiece 

FACING   PAGE 

O.  Henry's  Parents 2G 

Edgeworth  Female  Seminary 5Q 

Judge  Tourgee  Leaving  Greensboro     ....  60 

Interior  of  Clark  Porter's  Drug  Store  ....  86 

General  Land  Office,  Austin,  Texas     ....  120 

Specimen  Page  of  the  Rolling  Stone     ...      .      .  126 

The  Caledonia 186 

No.  55  Irving  Place.    An  Early  New  York  Home 

of  O.  Henry 200 

Heart  of  O.  Henry  Land 232 


ix 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 


CHAPTER  ONE 

THE    LIFE    AND    THE    STORY 

O.  HENRY  was  once  asked  why  he  did  not  read  more 
fiction.  "  It  is  all  tame,"  he  replied,  "as  compared  with 
the  romance  of  my  own  life."  But  nothing  is  more 
subtly  suggestive  in  the  study  of  this  remarkable  man 
than  the  strange,  structural  resemblance  between  the 
story  and  the  life.  Each  story  is  a  miniature  auto- 
biography, for  each  story  seems  to  summarize  the  four 
successive  stages  in  his  own  romantic  career. 

First,  the  reader  notices  in  an  0.  Henry  story  the 
quiet  but  arrestive  beginning.  There  is  interest,  a  bit 
of  suspense,  and  a  touch  of  distinction  in  the  first  para- 
graph; but  you  cannot  tell  what  lines  of  action  are  to  be 
stressed,  what  complications  of  character  and  incident 
are  to  follow,  or  whether  the  end  is  to  be  tragic  or  comic, 
a  defeat  or  a  victory.  So  was  the  first  stage  of  his  life. 
The  twenty  years  spent  in  Greensboro,  North  Carolina, 
were  comparatively  uneventful.  There  was  little  in 
them  of  prospect,  though  they  loom  large  with  signifi- 
cance in  the  retrospect.  O.  Henry  was  always  unique. 
When  as  a  freckle-faced  boy,  freckled  even  to  the  feet. 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

he  played  his  childish  pranks  on  young  and  old  and  told 
his  marvellous  yarns  of  knightly  adventure  or  Indian 
ambuscade,  every  father  and  mother  and  boy  and  girl 
felt  that  he  was  different  from  others  of  his  kind.  As 
he  approached  manhood,  his  ''somnolent  little  Southern 
town"  recognized  in  him  its  most  skilful  cartoonist 
of  local  character  and  its  ablest  interpreter  of  local 
incident.  Moliere  has  been  called  "the  composite 
smile  of  mankind."  O.  Henry  was  the  composite 
smile  of  Greensboro. 

In  the  second  stage  of  an  O.  Henry  story  the  lines 
begin  suddenly  to  dip  toward  a  plot  or  plan.  Still 
water  becomes  running  water.  It  is  the  stage  of  the 
first  guess.  Background  and  character,  dialogue  and 
incident,  sparkle  and  sly  thrust,  aspiration  and  adven- 
ture, seem  to  be  spelling  out  something  definite  and 
resultant.  You  cannot  guess  the  end  but  you  cannot 
help  trying.  In  terms  of  his  life  this  was  O.  Henry's 
second  or  Texas  period.  Had  he  died  at  the  age  of 
twenty,  before  leaving  Greensboro,  he  would  have  left 
a  local  memory  and  a  local  cult,  but  they  would  have 
remained  local.  A  few  would  have  said  that  with 
wider  opportunities  he  would  have  been  heard  from  in  a 
national  way.  But  when  letters  began  to  come  from 
Texas  telling  of  his  life  on  the  ranch  and  later  of  his 
adventures  in  local  journalism,  and  when  "W.  S. 
Porter"  signed  to  a  joke  or  skit  or  squib  in  Truth  or 
4 


THE  LIFE  AND  THE  STORY 

Uf  to  Date  or  the  Detroit  Free  Press  became  more  and 
more  a  certificate  of  the  worth  while,  those  of  us  who 
remained  in  the  home  town  began  to  prophesy  with 
some  assurance  that  he  would  soon  join  the  staff  of 
some  great  metropolitan  newspaper  or  magazine  and 
win  national  fame  as  a  cartoonist  or  travelling  cor- 
respondent. 

The  third  stage  of  an  O.  Henry  story  is  reached 
when  you  find  that  your  first  forecast  is  wrong.  This 
is  the  stage  of  the  first  surprise.  Something  has  hap- 
pened that  could  not  or  would  not  have  happened  if 
the  story  was  to  end  as  you  at  first  thought.  You 
must  give  up  the  role  of  prophet  or  at  least  readjust 
your  prophecy  to  the  demands  of  an  ending  wholly 
different  from  that  at  first  conjectured.  This  stage 
in  the  life  was  reached  in  1898,  when  misfortune,  swift, 
pitiless,  and  seemingly  irretrievable,  overtook  him. 
His  life  had  hitherto  developed  uniformly,  like  the 
advance  of  a  rolling  ball.  It  had  permitted  and  even 
invited  some  sort  of  conjecture  as  to  his  ultimate  place 
in  the  work  of  the  world.  But  now  his  destiny  seemed 
as  incalculable  as  the  blind  movements  of  a  log  in  the 
welter  of  the  sea. 

The  fourth  and  last  stage  in  an  O.  Henry  story,  the 
stage  of  the  second  surprise,  is  marked  by  light  out  of 
darkness.  Lines  of  character  and  characterization, 
of  hap  or  mishap,  converge  to  a  triumphant  conclusion. 

5 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

We  are  surprised,  happily  surprised,  and  then  sur- 
prised again  that  we  should  have  been  surprised  at 
first.     Says  Nicholas  Vachel  Lindsay: 

He  always  worked  a  triple-hinged  surprise 
To  end  the  scene  and  make  one  rub  his  eyes/ 

The  end  was  inherent  in  the  beginning,  however,  though 
we  did  not  see  it.  But  the  greatest  surprise  and  the 
happiest  surprise  is  found  in  the  last  stage  of  O.  Henry's 
life.  This  was  his  New  York  period,  the  culmination 
of  tendencies  and  impulses  that  we  now  know  had  stirred 
mightily  within  him  from  the  beginning.  Eight  years 
had  passed,  however,  years  of  constant  and  constantly 
deepening  development,  and  not  a  word  had  drifted 
back  to  the  home  town  from  him  or  about  him  since 
1898.  His  pencil  sketches  were  still  affectionately 
cherished  and  had  grown  in  historic  value  as  well  as 
In  personal  significance  as  the  years  had  passed.  They 
furnished  a  bond  of  common  memory  and  happy  as- 
sociation wherever  Greensboro  men  foregathered,  though 
the  fun  and  admiration  that  they  occasioned  were 
mellowed  by  the  thought  of  what  might  have  been. 
Now  came  the  discovery,  through  a  photograph  pub- 
lished in  a  New  York  magazine,  that  O.  Henry,  vari- 
ously styled  "the  American  Kipling,"  "the  American 
de  Maupassant,"  "the  American  Gogol,"  "our  Field- 
ing a  la  mode,''  "the  Bret  Harte  of  the  city,"  "the 
6 


THE  LIFE  AND  THE  STORY 

Y.  M.  C.  A.  Boccaccio,"  "the  Homer  of  the  Tender- 
loin," "the  20th  century  Haroun  Al-Raschid,"  "the 
discoverer  and  interpreter  of  the  romance  of  New 
York,"  "the  greatest  Hving  master  of  the  short  story," 
was  Will  Porter  of  Greensboro.  No  story  that  he  has 
written  quite  equals  this  in  reserved  surprise  or  in  real 
and  permanent  achievement. 

The  technique  of  the  story,  however,  is  the  technique 
of  the  life.  But  the  life  is  more  appealing  than  the 
story. 


CHAPTER  TWO 

VOGUE 

WILLIAM  SYDNEY  PORTER,  better  known  as  O. 
Henry,  was  born  in  Greensboro,  Guilford  County, 
North  Carolina,  September  11,  1862.  He  died  in 
New  York  City,  June  5,  1910.  Before  the  Porter 
family  Bible  was  found,  his  birth  year  varied  from  1807 
to  1864,  from  "about  the  close  of  the  war"  to  a  ques- 
tion mark.  There  is  no  doubt  that  0.  Henry  used 
the  author's  traditional  right  to  mystify  his  readers  in 
regard  to  his  age  and  to  the  unessential  facts  of  his  life. 
An  admirer  once  wrote  to  him  begging  to  know  by 
return  mail  whether  he  was  a  man  or  a  woman.  But 
the  stamped  envelope  enclosed  for  reply  remains  still 
unused.  "  If  you  have  any  applications  from  publishers 
for  photos  of  myself,"  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Witter  Bynner, 
"or  'slush'  about  the  identity  of  O.  Henry,  please 
refuse.  Nobody  but  a  concentrated  idiot  would  write 
over  a  pen-name  and  then  tack  on  a  lot  of  twaddle  about 
himself.  I  say  this  because  I  am  getting  some  letters 
from  reviewers  and  magazines  wanting  pictures,  etc., 
and  I  am  positively  declining  in  every  case." 

There  has  thus  grown  up  a  sort  of  0.  Henry  myth. 
8 


VOGUE 

*'It  threatens  to  attain,"  said  the  New  York  Sun  five 
years  after  his  death,  "the  proportions  of  the  Steven- 
son myth,  which  was  so  ill-naturedly  punctured  by 
Henley.  It  appears  to  be  inevitably  the  fate  of  'the 
writers'  writer' — and  O.  Henry  comes  under  this 
heading  notwithstanding  his  work's  universal  appeal 
— to  disintegrate  into  a  sort  of  grotesque  myth  after 
his  death.  As  a  matter  of  fact  Sydney  Porter  was, 
in  a  sort  of  a  way,  a  good  deal  of  a  myth  before  he  died. 
He  was  so  inaccessible  that  a  good  many  otherwise 
reasonable  people  who  unsuccessfully  sought  to  pene- 
trate his  cordon  and  to  force  their  way  into  his  cloister 
drew  bountifully  upon  their  imaginations  to  save  their 
faces  and  to  mask  their  failure." 

But  however  mythical  his  personality,  O.  Henry's 
work  remains  the  most  solid  fact  to  be  reckoned  with 
in  the  history  of  twentieth-century  American  literature. 
**More  than  any  author  who  ever  wrote  in  the  United 
States,"  says  Mr.  Stephen  Leacock,*  "O.  Henry  is  an 
American  writer.  And  the  time  is  coming,  let  us  hope, 
when  the  whole  English-speaking  world  will  recognize 
in  him  one  of  the  great  masters  of  modern  literature." 
If  variety  and  range  of  appeal  be  an  indication,  O. 
Henry  would  seem  to  be  approaching  the  time  thus 
prophesied.     He  has  won  the  three  classes  of  readers. 


*See  the  chapter  on  "The  Amazing  Genius  of  O.' Henry"  (in  Essays  and  Literary  Studies.) 
A  London  reviewer  of  Mr.  Leacock's  book  singles  out  for  special  praise  the  chapter  on  O.  Henry, 
placing  hini  "on  a  level  with  the  great  masters,  Poe  or  Maupassant  or  Cable." 

9 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

those  who  work  with  their  brains,  those  who  work 
with  their  hands,  and  those  who  mingle  the  two  in 
varying  but  incalculable  proportions.  The  ultra-con- 
servatives and  the  ultra-radicals,  the  critical  and  the 
uncritical,  the  bookmen  and  the  business  men,  the 
women  who  serve  and  those  who  only  stand  and  wait, 
all  have  enlisted  under  his  banner.  "The  men  and 
women  whom  I  have  in  mind,"  writes  Mr.  W.  J. 
Ghent,  author  of  "Socialism  and  Success,"  "are  social 
reformers,  socialists,  radicals,  and  progressives  of 
various  schools,  practical  and  theoretical  workers  in 
the  fields  of  social  and  political  science.  Some  of  these 
persons  read  Marx;  most  of  them  read  H.  G.  Wells 
and  John  Galsworthy;  but  all  of  them  are  much  more 
likely  to  read  bluebooks  and  the  Survey  than  the 
current  fiction  which  contains  no  'message.'  Yet  it 
was  just  among  these  persons,  so  far  as  my  individual 
acquaintance  goes,  that  O.  Henry  established  himself 
as  a  writer  almost  at  the  beginning  of  his  career." 

"When  I  was  a  freshman  in  Harvard  College," 
writes  Mr.  John  S.  Reed  in  the  American  Magazine^ 
"I  stood  one  day  looking  into  the  window  of  a  book- 
store on  Harvard  Square  at  a  new  volume  of  O.  Henry. 
A  quietly  dressed,  unimpressive  man  with  a  sparse, 
dark  beard  came  up  and  stood  beside  me.  Said  he, 
suddenly:  'Have  you  read  the  new  one?'  'No,'  I  said. 
'Neither  have  I.  I've  read  all  the  others,  though.' 
10 


VOGUE 

*He's  great,  don't  you  think?'  'Bully,"  replied  the 
quietly  dressed  man;  'let's  go  in  and  buy  this  one.'" 
The  quietly  dressed  man  was  William  James. 

A  writer  is  not  often  called  a  classic  until  at  least 
a  half  century  has  set  its  seal  upon  his  best  work. 
But  Mr.  Edward  Garnett,*  the  English  author,  re- 
viewer, and  critic,  admits  to  "the  shelf  of  my  prized 
American  classics"  seven  authors.  They  are  Poe, 
Thoreau,  Whitman,  Stephen  Crane,  Miss  Sarah  Orne 
Jewett,  Mr.  W.  D.  Howells,  and  0.  Henry,  though  O. 
Henry  published  his  first  book  in  1904.  Professor 
Henry  Seidel  Canby,  author  of  "The  Short  Story  in 
English,"  thinks  that  the  technique  of  the  short  story 
has  undergone  marked  changes  in  recent  years,  "es- 
pecially since  O.  Henry  took  the  place  of  Kipling  as  a 
literary  master."  Mr.  James  Lane  Allen  believes 
that  the  golden  age  of  the  American  short  story  closed 
about  1895.  "The  best  of  the  American  short  stories," 
he  says,  "written  during  that  period  [1870-1895], 
outweigh  in  value  those  that  have  been  written  later — 
with  the  exception  of  those  of  one  man  .  .  .  the 
one  exception  is  O.  Henry.  He  alone  stands  out  in 
the  later  period  as  a  world  within  himself,  as  much  apart 
from  any  one  else  as  are  Hawthorne  and  Poe." 

Mr.  Henry  James  Forman,  author  of  "In  the  Foot- 


♦See  "Some  Remarks  on  American  and  English  Fiction"  {Atlantic  Monthly,  December, 
1914). 

11 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

prints  of  Heine,"  finds  also  that,  with  one  exception, 
there  has  been  a  decHne  in  the  short  story  as  a  dis- 
tinct genre.  *'PubHshers  still  look  upon  it  somewhat 
askance , "  he  writes,  *  "as  on  one  under  a  cloud ,  and  authors, 
worldly-wise,  still  cling  to  the  novel  as  the  unquestioned 
leader.  But  here  and  there  a  writer  now  boldly  brings 
forth  a  book  of  short  tales,  and  the  publisher  does  his 
part.  The  stigma  of  the  genre  is  wearing  off,  and  for 
the  rehabilitation  one  man  is  chiefly  responsible.  Mr. 
Sydney  Porter,  the  gentleman  who,  in  the  language  of 
some  of  his  characters,  is  'denounced'  by  the  euphoni- 
ous pen-name  of  O.  Henry,  has  breathed  new  life  into 
the  short  story."  After  a  tentative  comparison  with 
Frangois  Villon,  Dickens,  and  Maupassant,  Mr.  For- 
man  concludes:  "It  is  idle  to  compare  O.  Henry  with 
anybody.  No  talent  could  be  more  original  or  more 
delightful.  The  combination  of  technical  excellence 
with  whimsical  sparkling  wit,  abundant  humour,  and 
a  fertile  invention  is  so  rare  that  the  reader  is  content 
without  comparisons."  The  NatioUy]  after  indicating 
the  qualities  that  seem  to  differentiate  him  from 
Kipling  and  Mark  Twain,  summarizes  in  a  single 
sentence:  "O.  Henry  is  actually  that  rare  bird  of  which 
we  so  often  hear  false  reports — a  born  story  teller." 

Professor  William  Lyon  Phelps  in   "The  Advance 
of  the  English  Novel"  puts  0.  Henry  among  the  five 

*The  North  American  Review.  May,  1908. 
t  July  4,  1907. 

12 


VOGUE 

greatest  American  short  story  writers.  "No  writer  of 
distinction,"  he  continues,  "has,  I  think,  been  more 
closely  Identified  with  the  short  story  In  EngHsh 
than  O.  Henry.  Irving,  Poe,  Hawthorne,  Bret  Harte, 
Stevenson,  Kipling  attained  fame  In  other  fields;  but 
although  Porter  had  his  mind  fully  made  up  to  launch 
what  he  hoped  would  be  the  great  American  novel, 
the  veto  of  death  Intervened,  and  the  many  volumes 
of  his  'complete  works'  are  made  up  of  brevities.  The 
essential  truthfulness  of  his  art  is  what  gave  his  work 
Immediate  recognition,  and  accounts  for  his  rise  from 
journalism  to  literature.  There  is  poignancy  In  his 
pathos;  desolation  in  his  tragedy;  and  his  extraordinary 
humour  is  full  of  those  sudden  surprises  that  give  us 
delight.  Uncritical  readers  have  never  been  so  deeply 
Impressed  with  O.  Henry  as  have  the  professional, 
jaded  critics,  weary  of  the  old  trick  a  thousand  times 
repeated,  who  found  in  his  writings  a  freshness  and 
originality  amounting  to  genius." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  jaded  critics  extended  a 
warm  welcome  to  O.  Henry,  but  that  they  were  more 
hospitable  than  the  uncritical  admits  of  question.  For 
several  years  I  have  made  it  a  practice  in  all  sorts  of  un- 
academlc  places,  where  talk  was  abundant,  to  lead  the 
conversation  If  possible  to  O.  Henry.  The  result  has 
been  a  conviction  that  O.  Henry  is  to-day  not  less 
"the  writers'  writer"  but  still  more  the  people's  writer. 

13 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

Travelling  a  few  years  ago  through  a  Middle  Western 
State,  during  an  intolerable  drought,  I  fell  into  con- 
versation with  a  man  the  burden  of  whose  speech  was 
"I've  made  my  pile  and  now  I'm  going  away  to  live." 
He  was  plainly  an  unlettered  man  but  by  no  means 
ignorant.  He  talked  interestingly,  because  genuinely, 
until  he  put  the  usual  question:  "What  line  of  goods  do 
you  carry.?"  When  I  had  to  admit  my  unappealing 
profession  his  manner  of  speech  became  at  once  formal 
and  distant.  "Professor,"  he  said,  after  a  painful 
pause,  "Emerson  is  a  very  elegant  writer,  don't  you 
think  so?"  I  agreed  and  also  agreed,  after  another 
longer  and  more  painful  pause,  that  Prescott  was  a  very 
elegant  writer.  These  two  names  plus  "elegant" 
seemed  to  exhaust  his  available  supply  of  literary  al- 
lusion. "Did  you  ever  read  O.  Henry.?"  I  asked. 
At  the  mention  of  the  name  his  manner  changed  in- 
stantly and  his  eyes  moistened.  Leaning  far  over  he 
said:  "Professor,  that's  literature,  tliafs  literature,  that's 
REAL  literature .''  He  was  himself  again  now.  The  mask 
of  affectation  had  fallen  away,  and  the  appreciation 
and  knowledge  of  O.  Henry's  work  that  he  displayed, 
the  affection  for  the  man  that  he  expressed,  the  grateful 
indebtedness  that  he  was  proud  to  acknowledge  for  a 
kindlier  and  more  intelligent  sympathy  with  his  fellow- 
men  showed  plainly  that  O.  Henry  was  the  only  writer  who 
had  ever  revealed  the  man's  better  nature  to  himself. 
14 


VOGUE 

The  incident  is  typical.  The  jaded  critics  and  the 
short  story  writers  read  O.  Henry  and  admire  him: 
they  find  in  him  what  they  want.  Those  who  do  not 
criticise  and  do  not  write  read  him  and  love  him:  they 
find  in  him  what  they  need — a  range  of  fancy,  an  exuber- 
ance of  humour,  a  sympathy,  an  understanding,  a 
knowledge  of  the  raw  material  of  life,  an  ability  to 
interpret  the  passing  in  terms  of  the  permanent,  an 
insight  into  individual  and  institutional  character,  a 
resolute  and  pervasive  desire  to  help  those  in  need  of 
help,  in  a  word  a  constant  and  essential  democracy 
that  they  find  in  no  other  short  story  writer.  But  the 
deeper  currents  in  O.  Henry's  work  can  be  traced  only 
through  a  wider  knowledge  of  O.  Henry  the  man. 


15 


CHAPTER  THREE 

ANCESTRY 

THE  O.  Henry  myth  could  not  forever  withstand  the 
curiosity  and  inquiry  begotten  by  the  increasing  ac- 
claim that  the  stories  were  beginning  to  receive.  O. 
Henry  himself  must  have  recognized  the  futility  of 
attempting  a  further  mystification,  for  there  is  evident 
in  his  later  years  a  willingness  and  even  a  desire  to 
throw  off  the  mask  of  the  assumed  name  and  thus  to 
link  his  achievement  with  the  name  and  fortunes  of  his 
family.  He  had  sought  freedom  and  self-expression 
through  his  writings  rather  than  fame.  In  fact,  he 
shunned  publicity  with  the  timidity  of  a  child.  "What 
used  to  strike  me  most  forcibly  in  0.  Henry,"  writes 
Mr.  John  H.  Barry,  who  knew  him  from  the  beginning 
of  his  career  in  New  York,  "was  his  distinction  of 
character.  To  those  he  knew  and  liked  he  revealed 
himself  as  a  man  of  singular  refinement.  He  had  beau- 
tiful, simple  manners,  a  low  voice,  and  a  most  charming 
air  of  self-effacement.  For  the  glory  of  being  famous 
he  cared  little.  He  had  a  dislike  of  being  lionized. 
Lion-hunting  women  filled  him  with  alarm.  In  fact, 
he  was  afraid  of  nearly  all  women." 
16 


ANCESTRY 
But  fame  had  come  and  with  it  came  a  vein  of  ancestral 
reminiscence  and  a  return  in  imagination  to  the  days  of 
childhood.  His  marriage,  in  1907,  to  the  sweetheart  and 
the  only  sweetheart  of  the  Greensboro  years,  his  visits  to 
Mrs.  Porter's  home  in  Asheville,  and  his  affectionate  al- 
lusions to  his  father  and  mother  show  plainly  a  tend- 
ency to  relax  the  cordon  about  him  and  to  re-knit  the 
ties  and  associations  of  youth.  O.  Henry  was  becom- 
ing Will  Porter  again.  Even  the  great  American  novel, 
of  which  Professor  Phelps  speaks,  was  to  be  in  the 
nature  of  an  autobiography.  "Let  Me  Feel  Your 
Pulse,"  the  last  complete  story  that  he  wrote,  was  also 
the  most  autobiographical.  "It  was  written,"  says 
Dr.  Pinkney  Herbert,  of  Asheville,  "with  the  aid  of 
my  medical  books.  Sometimes  he  would  take  them  to 
his  office  and  again  he  would  sit  in  my  outer  office." 
It  was  heralded  by  the  magazine  announcement,  "If 
you  want  to  get  well,  read  this  story."  But  O.  Henry 
was  dead  before  the  story  was  published.  In  it  he  speaks 
of  his  ancestors  who  blended  the  blood  of  North  and  South  : 

"It's  the  haemoglobin  test,"  he  [the  doctor]  explained.  "The 
color  of  your  blood  is  wrong."  "Well,"  said  I,  "I  know  it  should 
be  blue;  but  this  is  a  country  of  mix-ups.  Some  of  my  ancestors 
were  cavaliers;  but  they  got  thick  with  some  people  on  Nantucket 
Island,  so " 

His  forebears  were  again  in  his  mind  when,  wrenched 
with   pain   but  not  bowed,  he  went  to  the  hospital 

17 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

in  New  York  from  which  he  knew  he  would  not  return 
alive.     Will  Irwin  describes  the  scene  as  follows  :* 

Then  as  he  stepped  from  the  elevator  to  the  ward,  a  kind  of 
miracle  came  over  him.  Shy,  sensitive,  guarding  the  bare  nerve- 
ends  of  his  soul  with  an  affectation  of  flippancy,  his  gait  had 
always  been  furtive,  his  manner  shrinking.  Now  he  walked 
nobly,  his  head  up,  his  chest  out,  his  feet  firm — walked  as  earls 
walked  to  the  scaffold.  Underneath  all  that  democracy  of  life 
and  love  of  the  raw  human  heart  which  made  him  reject  the 
prosperous  and  love  the  chatter  of  car-conductors  and  shop-girls 
— that  quality  which  made  Sydney  Porter  "O.  Henry" — lay 
pride  in  his  good  Southern  blood.  It  was  as  though  he  sum- 
moned all  this  pride  of  blood  to  help  him  fight  the  last  battle  like 
a  man  and  a  Sydney. 

Thus 

After  Last  returns  the  First, 

Though  a  wide  compass  round  be  fetched. 

William  Sydney  Porter  was  named  after  his  mother's 
father,  William  Swaim,  and  his  father's  father,  Sidney 
Porter. t  He  was  always  called  Will  Porter  in  the  early 
days  except  by  his  grandmother  on  his  father's  side 
who  occasionally  called  him  Sydney.  He  never 
saw  either  of  his  grandfathers,  both  dying  long  before 
he  was  born.  But  William  Swaim,  his  mother's  father, 
who  died  in  1835,  left  his  impress  upon  the  State  and 
was,  so  far  as  can  be  learned,  the  only  journalist  or 
writer  among  O.  Henry's  ancestors.  The  ink  in  O. 
Henry's  blood  came  from  this  Quaker  grandparent, 

*"0.  Henry,  Man  and  Writer"  (in  the  Cosfnopolitan,  September,  1910). 

to.  Henry  changed  the  spelling  of  his  middle  name  from  Sidney  to  Sydney  in  1898.  See  page  16SI 

18 


ANCESTRY 

whose  ancestor,  also  William  Swaim,  emigrated  from 
Holland  about  the  year  1700  and  is  buried  in  Richmond, 
Staten  Island,  his  descendants  having  moved  to  North 
Carolina  at  least  ten  years  before  the  Revolutionary 
War.  William  Swaim,  0.  Henry's  grandfather,  did 
not  found  the  Greensboro  Patriot^  of  which  he  became 
editor  in  1827,  but  he  had  the  good  sense  to  change  its 
name  from  the  ponderous  Patriot  and  Greensboro  Pal- 
ladium to  the  simpler  title  that  it  has  since  borne.  He 
does  not  seem  to  me  to  have  been  as  able  or  as  well 
balanced  a  man  as  Lyndon  Swaim  who,  strangely 
enough,  though  not  ascertainably  related,  was  soon  to 
succeed  William  Swaim  both  as  editor  and  as  husband 
and  thus  to  become  the  only  father  that  O.  Henry's 
mother  knew. 

William  Swaim  had  convictions  and  he  hewed  to 
the  line.  When  "the  nabob  gentry"  of  Greensboro, 
as  he  called  them,  sought  to  bend  the  Patriot  to  their 
own  purposes,  he  wrote  as  follows  (May  30,  1832) : 

They  soon  learned  from  our  tone  that  we  would  sooner  beg  for 
bread  and  be  free  than  to  compromise  our  principles  for  a  seat 
upon  a  tawdry  throne  of  corruption.  Still  bent  upon  the  fell 
purpose  of  preventing,  if  possible,  an  unshackled  press  from 
growing  into  public  favor,  their  last  resort  was  to  ransack  hell, 
from  the  centre  to  the  circumference,  for  slanderous  fabrications; 
and  these  have  been  heaped  upon  us,  without  cause  and  without 
mercy,  even  until  now.  But  thanks  to  a  generous  public,  they 
have  thus  far  sustained  us  "through  evil  as  well  as  through  good 
report,"  and  we  would  rather  bask  for  one  hour  in  their  approving 

19 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

smiles  than  to  spend  a  whole  eternity  amidst  the  damning  grins 
of  a  concatenation  of  office-hunters,  despots,  demagogues,  tyrants, 
fools,  and  hypocrites. 

When  subscribers  subscribed  but  took  French  leave. 
Editor  Swaim  threw  the  lasso  after  them  in  this  wise : 

STOP  THE  runaways! 

The  following  is  a  list  of  gentlemen  who,  after  reading  our 
paper  for  a  time,  have  politely  disappeared  and  left  us  the  "bag 
to  hold."  We  give  the  name  of  each,  together  with  the  amount 
due,  and  the  place  of  his  residence  at  the  time  he  patronized  us. 
Should  this  pubhcation  meet  the  eye  of  any  delinquents  and  should 
they  yet  conclude  to  forward  to  us  the  amount  due,  we  will  pub- 
licly acknov/ledge  the  receipt  and  restore  him  who  sends  it  to 
better  credit  than  an  act  of  the  legislature  could  possibly  give. 
Any  person  who  will  favor  us  with  information  of  the  residence 
of  any  or  all  of  these  absentees  shall  have  the  right  to  claim  the 
homage  of  our  sincere  thanks : 

Joseph  Aydelotte,  Esq.,  Guilford  County,  North  Carolina. 
Twelve  dollars. 

John  Lackey,  Tarboro.     Nine  dollars. 

James  Hlatt,  not  recollected.     Nine  dollars. 

William  Atkinson,  unknown.     Nine  dollars. 

Jacob  Millers,  not  recollected.     Nine  dollars. 

Joseph  Bryan,  whipt  anyhow  and  may  be  hung.     Six  dollars. 

Is  there  not  at  least  a  hint  of  O.  Henry  in  this  "unex- 
pected crack  of  the  whip  at  the  end.'^" 

William  Swaim  believed  that  the  lines  had  fallen 
to  him  in  an  evil  age.  He  was  an  ardent  TVTiig,  a  bitter 
opponent  of  Jackson  and  all  things  Jacksonian,  a  fear- 
less and  independent  fighter  for  the  right  as  he  saw  the 
20 


ANCESTRY 

right,  and  an  equal  foe  of  fanaticism  in  the  North  and 
of  slavery  in  the  South.  His  style  was  ponderous 
rather  than  weighty,  the  humour  being  entirely  uncon- 
scious. "I  am  surprised,"  he  writes,  "that  my  old 
friend  Jonathan  suffered  this  limb  of  the  law  to  put 
afloat  under  the  sanction  of  his  name  such  a  tissue  of 
falsehood,  malignity,  and  spleen."  One  must  go  to  Jeff 
Peters  of  "The  Gentle  Grafter"  for  a  sentence  the  equal 
of  that.  "Let  me  tell  you  first,"  said  Jeff,  "about  these 
barnacles  that  clog  the  wheels  of  society  by  poisoning 
the  springs  of  rectitude  with  their  upas-like  eye." 

The  ablest  thing  that  this  grandfather  of  O.  Henry 
ever  wrote  was  a  protest  against  slavery.  He  was  an 
advocate  of  the  gradual  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  a 
society  for  this  purpose  having  been  formed  at  Center, 
ten  miles  from  Greensboro,  as  early  as  1816.  Center 
was  a  Quaker  stronghold,  its  most  influential  family 
being  the  Worth  family,  to  which  O.  Henry's  grand- 
mother on  his  father's  side  belonged.  Hinton  Rowan 
Helper,  the  most  famous  of  North  Carolina's  aboli- 
tionists, refers  to  the  valiant  services  of  Daniel  Worth  in 
"The  Impending  Crisis,"  a  book  often  compared  with 
"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  as  a  sort  of  co-herald  of  the  doom 
of  slavery.  "William  Swaim  was  greeted,"  says  Cart- 
land,*  "with  a  storm  of  abuse,  but  he  boldly  published 
his  sentiments  and  often  gave  the  threatening  letters 


*See  "Southern  Heroes  or  the  Friends  in  War  Time,"  by  Fernando  G.  Cartland. 

21 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

which  he  received  a  conspicuous  place  in  the  Patriot.^* 
In  1882  Daniel  R.  Goodloe  writes  to  Lyndon  Swaim 
from  Washington,  D.  C: 

William  Swaim  in  1830  published  a  pamphlet  entitled  "An 
Address  to  the  People  of  North  Carolina  on  the  Evils  of  Slavery" 
with  mottoes  in  Latin  and  English.  The  imprint  is  "William 
Swaim,  Printer,  Greensboro,  N.  C.  1830."  Some  twenty-seven 
or  thirty  years  ago  the  abolitionists  of  New  York  republished,  I 
suppose,  a  facsimile  of  the  original,  and  Mr.  Spofiford,  the  librarian 
of  Congress,  has  procured  a  copy.  He  asked  me  who  was  the 
author,  as  it  is  a  rule  with  him  to  give,  as  far  as  possible,  the  name 
of  every  author.  I  should  have  quoted  in  the  title  that  it  purports 
to  be  written  and  published  "By  the  Friends  of  Liberty  and 
Equality."  William  Swaim  introduces  the  address  with  a  few 
words  over  his  signature,  stating  that  it  emanates  from  the  "Board 
of  Managers  of  the  Manumission  Society  of  North  Carolina." 
I  will  thank  you  to  write  me  all  you  know  of  this  Manumission 
Society  and  of  the  authorship  of  this  pamphlet.  The  pamphlet 
does  great  honor  to  all  concerned  with  it,  and  their  names  should 
be  known  in  this  day  of  universal  liberty. 

O.  Henry's  grandmother,  who  married  Lyndon  Swaim 
after  the  death  of  her  husband  William  Swaim,  was  Abia 
Shirley  (or  Abiah  Shirly),  daughter  of  Daniel  Shirley, 
a  wealthy  planter,  of  Princess  Anne  County,  Virginia. 
*'The  original  Abia  Shirley,"  O.  Henry  once  remarked 
to  an  intimate  friend  in  New  York,  "was  related  to 
the  House  of  Stuart  but  she  ran  off  with  a  Catholic 
priest."  Where  O.  Henry  learned  this  bit  of  ancestral 
history  I  do  not  know;  but  that  the  Shirley  family 
to  which  his  grandmother  traced  her  lineage  was 
22 


ANCESTRY 

among  the  most  loyal  adherents  of  the  Stuarts  admits 
of  little  doubt.  A  letter  from  Charles  II  to  the  widow 
of  Sir  Robert  Shirley,  Sir  Robert  having  died  in  the 
Tower  "after  seven  times  being  imprisoned  there  and 
suspected  to  be  poisoned  by  the  Usurper  Oliver  Crom- 
well," runs  as  follows:* 

Brusselles  20  Oct.  1657. 

It  hath  been  my  particular  care  of  you  that  I  have  this  long 
deferred  to  lament  with  you  the  greate  losse  that  you  and  I  have 
sustained,  least  insteede  of  comforting,  I  might  farther  expose 
you  to  the  will  of  those  who  will  be  glad  of  any  occasion  to  do  you 
further  prejudice;  but  I  am  promised  that  this  shall  be  put  safely 
into  your  hands,  though  it  may  be  not  so  soone  as  I  wish;  and  I 
am  very  willing  you  should  know,  which  I  suppose  you  cannot 
doubte,  that  I  bear  a  greate  parte  with  you  of  your  affliction  and 
whenever  it  shall  be  in  my  power  to  make  it  lighter,  you  shall  see 
I  retayne  a  very  kinde  memory  of  your  frinde  by  the  care  I  shall 
have  of  you  and  all  his  relations:  and  of  this  you  may  depende 
upon  the  worde  of 

your  very  affectionate 

Frinde  Charles  R. 

This  Sir  Robert  Shirley,  who  met  his  death  in  1656, 
was  one  of  the  Shirley s  of  Wiston  (or  Whiston),  in 
Sussex,  though  he  lived  in  Leicestershire;  and  it  was 
after  Sir  Thomas  Shirley  of  Wiston  that  Shirley,  the 
beautiful  old  Virginia  place,  was  named. f  Built  at 
an  unknown  date  just  above  the  point  where  the 
Appomattox    River    enters    the    James,    this    historic 

*See  "Stemmata  Shirleiana"  (1841),  which  makes,  however,  no  references  to  the  American 
Shirleys. 

fSee  "Historic  Virginia  Homes  and  Churches,"  by  Robert  A.  Lancaster,  Jr. 

23 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

home,  with  its  three  lofty  stories  and  two-storied 
porches,  its  wide-spreading  lawn  and  massive  oaks, 
contests  with  Monticello  the  primacy  among  Virginia's 
ancestral  seats.  Here  was  born  Anne  Hill  Carter,  the 
wife  of  Light  Horse  Harry  Lee  and  the  mother  of  Robert 
E.  Lee.  As  far  back  as  1622,  in  the  history  of  the 
Indian  massacre  of  that  year,  the  Plantation  of  West 
Shirley  in  Virginia  is  mentioned  as  one  of  the  "five  or 
six  well-fortified  places"  into  which  the  survivors  gath- 
ered for  defense.  It  was  from  the  Shirley s  of  Wiston, 
who  gave  the  name  to  the  plantation  and  later  to  the 
home,  that  the  Shirley  family  of  Princess  Anne  County 
always  traced  their  descent.  Though  I  have  been 
unable  to  find  an  Abia  Shirley  antedating  O.  Henry's 
grandmother,  William  Swaim,  in  a  letter  lying  before 
me,  dated  Greensboro,  N.  C,  May  22,  1830,  speaks  of 
Nancy  Shirley,  his  wife's  sister,  "who  had  intermarried 
with  Thomas  Bray."  It  is  at  least  a  noteworthy  coin- 
cidence that  a  sixteenth-century  Beatrix  Shirley  of 
Wiston  married  "Sir  Edward  Bray,  the  elder,  of 
Vachery,  Surrey  County,  Knight."  * 

But  whether  "the  original  Abia  Shirley"  was  fact 
or  fancy,  it  is  certain  that  the  Abia  Shirley,  who  be- 
came O.  Henry's  grandmother,  lived  a  gracious  and 
exemplary  life  in  Greensboro  and  bequeathed  a  memory 
still   cherished   by   the  few  friends   who   survive  her. 

•  "Stemmata  Shirleiana." 


ANCESTRY 

The  following   obituary   notice,   signed    "A   Friend," 
appeared  in  the  Patriot  of  January,  1858: 

Died. — In  this  place  on  Monday  morning,  January  18th,  Mrs. 
Abia  Swaim,  wife  of  Lyndon  Swaina,  in  the  50th  year  of  her  age. 
For  nearly  two  years  Mrs.  Swaim  had  been  confined  to  her  room, 
and  most  of  that  time  to  her  bed,  by  consumption — constantly 
in  pain,  which  she  patiently  endured  with  great  Christian  forti- 
tude. She  leaves  an  aflfectionate  husband  and  a  devoted  daughter 
to  mourn  their  loss.  In  her  death  the  "poor  and  the  needy'* 
have  been  deprived  of  an  invaluable  friend;  for  no  one  in  this 
community  was  more  ready  to  contribute  to  the  relief  of  poverty 
and  hunger  than  the  subject  of  this  notice.  She  was  always  ready 
to  watch  around  the  sick  bed  of  her  friends,  and  all  who  knew  her 
were  her  friends;  I  believe  she  had  no  enemies. 

Mrs.  Swaim  was  a  native  of  Eastern  Virginia — her  maiden  name 
being  Shirly.  On  arriving  to  womanhood,  she  removed  to  this 
place  with  her  sister,  the  late  Mrs.  Carbry,  and  was  afterward 
united  in  marriage  with  William  Swaim.  He  dying,  she  remained 
a  widow  several  years,  when  she  was  married  to  Lyndon  Swaim. 

She  embraced  religion  in  her  youth,  and  for  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury lived  an  exemplary  and  acceptable  member  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  exhibiting  on  all  occasions  a  strong  and  lively 
faith  in  the  eflBcacy  of  the  blood  of  Christ;  and  while  her  friends 
drop  many  sympathizing  tears  with  her  bereaved  family,  they  can 
in  their  sorrow^  all  rejoice  in  full  assurance  that  her  never-dying 
spirit  is  now  united  with  that  of  a  sweet  infant  daughter  who  pre- 
ceded her  to  heaven;  and  that  at  the  great  resurrection  morn,  her 
body  will  be  raised  to  life  everlasting.  May  we  all  strive  to 
imitate  her  many  virtues,  that  when  the  summons  of  death  comes, 
we  may  be  able  to  die  as  she  died,  at  peace  with  God  and  man,  and 
gently  close  our  eyes  in  sleep. 

The  "devoted  daughter"  was  Mary  Jane  Virginia 
Swaim,  O.  Henry's  mother.     She  was  twenty-five  years 

25 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

old  at  the  time  of  her  mother's  death  and  married  Dr. 
Algernon  Sidney  Porter  three  months  later.  Only 
seven  years  had  passed  when  the  Patriot  bore  the  fol- 
lowing; announcement: 


DIED 


In  Greensboro,  N.  C.,  September  26,  1865,  Mrs.  Mary  V. 
Porter,  wife  of  Dr.  A.  S.  Porter,  and  only  child  of  the  late  William 
Swaim.  Mrs.  Porter  leaves  a  devoted  husband  and  three  small 
children,  together  with  numerous  friends  to  mourn  her  early  death. 
She  gave,  in  her  last  moments,  most  satisfactory  evidence  that 
she  had  made  her  peace  with  God,  and  her  friends  can  entertain 
no  doubt  of  her  happiness  in  the  spirit  land.  She  was  aged  about 
thirty  years;  was  a  graduate  of  Greensboro  Female  College;  and 
possessed  mental  faculties  of  high  order,  finely  developed  by 
careful  training.  Her  death  is  a  great  social  loss  to  our  commun- 
ity; but  especially  to  her  affectionate  husband  and  three  little 
children.     Her  disease  was  consumption. 

Whether  0.  Henry  remembered  his  mother  or  not  it 
would  be  impossible  to  say.  Certain  it  is  that  he 
cherished  the  thought  of  her  with  a  devotion  and  pride 
and  sense  of  temperamental  indebtedness  that  he  felt 
for  no  one  else,  nor  for  all  his  other  relatives  put  to- 
gether. Whatever  vein  of  quiet  humour  marked  his 
allusions  to  the  other  members  of  his  family  or  to  his 
family  history,  his  mother's  name  was  held  apart. 
She  was  to  him  *'a  thing  ensky'd  and  sainted."  There 
was  always  an  aureole  about  her.  The  poems  that 
she  wrote  and  the  pictures  that  she  painted — or  rather 
the  knowledge  that  she  had  written  poems  and  painted 
26 


ANCESTRY 

pictures — exercised  a  directive  and  lasting  Influence 
upon  him.  Had  she  lived  she  would  have  given  to 
the  Porter  home  an  atmosphere  that  It  never  had  after 
1865.  She  would  have  enabled  her  gifted  son  to  find 
himself  many  years  earlier  than  he  did  and  she  would 
have  brought  him  to  his  goal  not 

By  a  route  obscure  and  lonely 

but  along  the  broad  highway  of  common  tastes  and 
common  sympathies. 

Lyndon  Swalm  gave  his  step-daughter  every  educa- 
tional advantage  that  Greensboro  offered  and  then 
as  now  no  town  In  North  Carolina  offered  as  many  to 
women.  There  were  two  colleges  for  women  on  old 
West  Market  Street,  both  very  near  and  one  almost 
opposite  the  house  in  which  O.  Henry's  mother  was  to 
spend  all  of  her  short  married  life.  Both  Institutions 
had  already  begun  to  attract  students  from  other 
Southern  States.  One  was  the  Greensboro  Female 
College,  now  the  Greensboro  College  for  Women,  a 
Methodist  school,  the  corner-stone  of  which  was  laid 
in  1843  and  the  later  history  of  which  has  been  the 
romance  of  education  In  North  Carolina.  The  other 
was  the  Edgeworth  Female  Seminary,  a  Presbyterian 
school,  founded  and  owned  by  Governor  John  Motley 
Morehead,  whose  Influence  on  the  industrial  and  cul- 
tural development  of  the  State  remains  as  yet  unequalled . 

27 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

Edge  worth  opened  its  doors  in  1840  and  was  burned 
in  1872.  O.  Henry's  mother  attended  both  schools, 
graduating  from  the  Greensboro  Female  College  in 
1850,  the  year  in  which  Dr.  Charles  F.  Deems  assumed 
control.  Her  graduating  essay  bore  the  strangely 
prophetic  title,  "The  Influence  of  Misfortune  on  the 
Gifted." 

She  entered  Edgeworth  at  the  age  of  twelve  and 
during  her  one  session  there  she  studied  Bullion's 
"English  Grammar,"  Bolmar's  "Physics,"  Lin- 
coln's "Botany,"  besides  receiving  "instruction  in  the 
higher  classes  and  in  the  French  language."  During 
her  four  years  at  the  Greensboro  Female  College  she 
studied  rhetoric,  algebra,  geometry,  logic,  astronomy, 
"White's  "Universal  History,"  Butler's  "Analogy  of 
Religion,  Natural  and  Revealed,  to  the  Constitution 
and  Course  of  Nature,"  and  Alexander's  "Evidences 
of  the  Authenticity,  Inspiration,  and  Canonical  Au- 
thority of  the  Holy  Scriptures."  She  specialized  in 
French  and  later  in  painting  and  drawing.  The  fly- 
leaves of  her  copy  of  Alexander's  "Evidences" — and 
doubtless  of  Butler's  "Analogy"  if  it  could  be  found — 
are  covered  with  selections  from  her  favourite  poets, 
while  dainty  sketches  of  gates,  trees,  houses,  and 
flowers,  filling  the  inter-spaces,  show  that  she  relieved 
the  tedium  of  classroom  lectures  exactly  as  her  son  was 
to  do  thirty  years  later. 
28 


ANCESTRY 

That  O.  Henry's  mother  was  an  unusually  bright 
scholar  is  attested  by  both  teachers  and  classmates. 
Rev.  Solomon  Lea,  the  first  President  of  the  Greens- 
boro Female  College,  writes  December  1,  1846,  to 
Lyndon  Swaim:  "Your  daughter  Mary  ranks  No.  1 
in  her  studies,  has  an  excellent  mind,  and  will  no  doubt 
make  a  fine  scholar."  Says  one  of  her  classmates, 
Mrs.  Henry  Tate:  "Mary  Swaim  was  noted  in  her 
school  days  as  a  writer  of  beautiful  English  and  the 
school  girls  came  to  depend  upon  her  for  their  com- 
positions. She  wrote  most  of  the  graduating  essays 
for  the  students."  Mrs.  Tate  adds  that  O.  Henry 
resembled  his  mother  in  personal  appearance  and  in 
traits  of  character. 

The  following  letter,  written  by  her  at  the  age  of 
fifteen  to  her  step-father,  almost  the  only  letter  of 
O.  Henry's  mother  that  has  been  preserved,  seems 
here  and  there  to  hint  if  it  does  not  fore-announce 
something  of  the  humorous  playfulness  of  the  son. 
Note  especially  the  tendency  to  give  an  unexpected 
turn  to  common  sayings  and  quotations,  a  device  that 
became  in  O.  Henry's  hands  an  art: 

Greensboro,  Sept.  21,  1848. 

Dear  Father:  Your  letter  reached  us  last  Monday,  having 
come  by  Raleigh  as  also  did  Dr.  Mebane's.  We  were  very  anxious 
to  hear  from  you  before  we  received  your  letter,  but  it  came  like  an 
"Angel's  visit"  bringing  peace  to  our  anxious  minds.     We  are  all 

29 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

well  at  present  and  want  to  see  you  very  much.  Your  letter  was 
very  interesting  to  us  all  from  its  being  a  description  of  your 
travels.  From  what  you  wrote  I  should  judge  you  had  not  re- 
ceived my  letter  which  I  wrote  agreeable  to  your  request.  Mother 
says  she  is  very  glad  to  hear  that  your  health  is  improving  and 
she  wants  to  see  you  when  you  come  home  looking  as  portly  as 
Dr.  Cole*  or  Governor  Morehead.  There  is  no  news  of  interest 
stirring  in  town  at  this  time.  Last  Sunday  evening  there  was  a 
sudden  death  in  the  Methodist  Church.  A  negro  belonging  to 
Mrs.  Bencini  was  either  shouting  or  talking  to  the  mourners 
when  she  fell  dead  on  the  spot.  ]VIr.  Armfield's  daughter  died 
last  week.     There  is  little  or  no  sickness  in  town  at  present. 

Sherwood  you  know  always  does  keep  a  "stiff  upper  lip"  for  he 
rarely  if  ever  shaves,  only  when  he  is  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Miss 
Betsey  or  Miss  Martha  or  Miss  Maria  or  a  dozen  of  Misses  at 
whom  he  casts  sheep  eyes.  You  said  as  you  passed  through  Lex- 
ington you  saw  Miss  Salisbury  teaching  some  "young  ideas  how 
to  shoot."  I  am  siu"e  if  they  were  as  large  as  I  they  would  not 
have  needed  her  assistance  to  teach  them  how  to  shoot,  especially 
if  they  shoot  with  a  bow,  for  generally  such  ideas  learn  how  to 
shoot  with  that  sort  of  a  weapon  by  instinct.  All  the  family  send 
their  love  to  you,  and  Mother  says  again:  "Take  good  care  of 
yourself  and  come  home  soon."  As  I  am  to  have  this  letter 
finished  by  twelve  o'clock  and  it  is  only  a  few  minutes  of  that 
time,  I  must  stop  here,  not  before  saying,  however,  to  make 
haste  and  come  home.  If  you  do  not  start  home  right  off,  you 
must  write  again. 

Yours  affectionately 

Mary  V.  Swaim. 

The  resemblances  between  O.  Henry  and  his  mother 
are  still  further  revealed  in  these  "Memories  of  the 


*This  was  Br.  J.  L.  Cole  with  whom  lived  his  nephew  C.  C.  Cole.  The  latter,  a  young 
graduate  of  Trinity  College,  N.  C,  was  soon  to  edit  the  Times  of  Greensboro,  to  which  WUliam 
Gilmore  Simms,  John  Esten  Cooke,  and  Mrs.  Lydia  Huntly  Sigourney  contributed  regularly. 
C.  C.  Cole  became  Colonel  of  the  Twenty-second  Regiment  and  was  killed  in  the  Battle  of 
Chancellorsville,  May  3,  1863. 

30 


ANCESTRY 

Mother  of  a  Gifted  Writer,"  sent  me  by  Mr.  William 
Laurie  Hill: 

In  the  days  of  the  old  four  horse  stage  coach  and  the  up  and  down 
hill  stretch  of  our  country  roads  leading  from  one  town  or  village 
to  another,  there  were  but  fifty  miles  of  road  between  the  old 
Revolutionary  village  of  Milton,  North  Carolina,  and  the  more 
aspiring  town  of  Greensboro.  For  a  high  type  of  social  life  old 
Milton,  although  a  village,  had  no  superior  in  the  State,  and  her 
people,  although  "stay  at  home  bodies,"  claimed  many  friends 
even  in  distant  parts.  In  summer  many  of  her  homes  were  filled 
with  visitors  and  in  those  halcyon  days  of  peace  and  plenty  it  was 
a  delight  to  keep  open  house. 

Milton  could  boast  of  having  a  spicy  weekly  paper  known  as 
the  Milton  Chronicle  that  carried  its  weekly  message  into  all  the 
neighboring  counties.  The  editor  was  Charles  Napoleon  Bona- 
part  Evans,  who  originated  the  character  of  "Jesse  Holmes,  the 
Fool-KiUer."*  This  character  furnished  sarcasm  and  wit  in 
weekly  instalments  that  kept  the  young  people  always  on  the 
edge  of  expectancy.  Greensboro  also  had  a  paper  of  no  mean 
pretentions  and,  perhaps  leaving  out  the  Salisbury  Watchman 
and  the  Hillsboro  paper  long  presided  over  by  that  venerable  old 
editor  Dennis  Ileartt,  the  Greensboro  Patriot  stood  next  in  age 
in  the  State,  and  the  name  of  William  Swaim  was  almost  as  widely 
known  as  was  Edward  J.  Hale  of  the  Fayetteville  Observer.  There 
seemed  to  be  warm  and  tender  social  ties  that  united  the  Swaim 
and  Evans  families  and  although  dwelling  fifty  miles  apart  there 

*  Readers  of  O.  Henry  will  recall  that  in  "The  Fool-Killer"  he  says:  "Down  South  when- 
ever any  one  perpetrates  some  particularly  monumental  piece  of  foolishness  everybody  says: 
'Send  for  Jesse  Holmes.'  Jesse  Holmes  is  the  Fool-Killer."  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  O. 
Henry  was  here  quoting,  unconsciously  I  presume,  a  saying  originated  by  his  mother's  cousin. 
Charles  Napoleon  Bonapart  Evans's  mother  was  a  Miss  Shirley,  sister  of  Abia  Shirley.  The 
familiarity  of  Greensboro  boys  with  "Jesse  Holmes"  has  here  led  O.  Henry  to  ascribe  a  wider 
circuit  to  the  saying  than  the  facts  seem  to  warrant.  From  queries  sent  out  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  "Jesse  Holmes"  as  a  synonym  for  the  Fool-Killer  is  not  widely  known  in  the 
South  and  is  current  in  North  Carolina  only  in  spots.  "I  tried  it  out  this  morning  in  chapel," 
writes  President  E.  K.  Graham,  of  the  University  of  North  Carolina,  "on  perhaps  five  hundred 
North  Carolinians.  Only  three  had  heard  of  it."  One  of  these  was  from  Greensboro  and  cited 
Charles  Napoleon  Bonapart  Evans  as  the  author. 

31 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

were  frequent  interchanges  of  visits,  and  Mary  Jane  Virginia 
Swaim  always  enjoyed  with  a  reUsh  her  visits  to  Mrs.  Evans  and 
was  the  recipient  of  many  hospitable  attentions  whenever  she 
brightened  by  her  presence  our  little  village. 

To  have  a  new  girl  come  into  our  social  life  was  a  source  of  great 
pleasure  to  our  boys  and  I  well  remember  the  first  time  I  ever  saw 
Mary  Swaim,  and,  had  I  been  just  a  little  older,  perhaps  there 
might  have  been  a  serious  attempt  to  alter  what  is  now  both 
biography  and  family  history.  Calling  one  evening  at  the  Evans 
home,  which  was  diagonally  across  the  street  from  my  own,  I  was 
ushered  into  the  presence  of  one  of  the  most  winsome  women  I 
ever  saw,  and  from  our  first  introduction  we  became  friends. 

Mary  Swaim  was  not  a  beauty  but  her  eyes  could  talk  and  when 
she  became  animated  in  conversation  her  every  feature  was  instinct 
with  expression  and  hfe  and  with  the  passing  thoughts  to  which 
she  gave  expression.  There  was  a  play  of  color  in  her  cheeks 
richer  than  the  blush  of  the  peach.  She  was  quick  of  wit  and  a 
match  for  any  would-be  iconoclast  who  undertook  to  measure 
repartee  with  her.  She  was  considerate  of  even  her  youngest 
cavalier  and  never  seemed  to  shun  the  attentions  of  those  younger 
in  years  than  herself.  To  say  that  she  was  a  universal  favorite 
in  old  Milton  with  young  and  old,  expresses  but  feebly  the  im- 
pression that  she  left  on  the  hearts  and  memories  of  those  who 
knew  her  in  the  happy  days  of  long  ago. 

The  tides  of  life  ebbing  and  flowing  carried  this  most  winsome 
woman  into  new  and  untried  paths  and  she  became,  as  she  had 
given  promise  to  be,  a  lovely  and  loving  mother.  After  the 
pleasant  associations  of  those  early  days  I  saw  her  no  more,  but 
I  was  in  the  throng  that  assembled  in  Raleigh,  on  December  2, 
1914,  and  witnessed  the  unveiling  of  the  bronze  tablet*  in  the 
Library  Building,  placed  there  in  memory  of  her  illustrious  son, 
William  Sydney  Porter,  more  familiarly  and  affectionately  known 
as  O.  Henry.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  such  a  woman  as  Mary  Swaim 
should  have  given  to  the  world  such  a  son  as   William   Sydney 


♦Erected  by  the  Literary  and  Historical  Association  of  North  Carolina  under  the  presi- 
dency of  Dr.  Archibald  Henderson. 

32 


ANCESTRY 

Porter?  In  him  and  his  wonderful  literary  work  the  mother  will 
live  on  when  marble  monuments  and  bronze  tablets  shall  have 
crumbled  into  dust. 

O.  Henry's  grandparents  on  his  father's  side  were 
Sidney  Porter  and  Ruth  Coffyn  Worth.  They  rest 
side  by  side  in  the  small  and  fast  diminishing  grave- 
yard of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  in  Greensboro, 
the  headstones  bearing  the  inscriptions; 

In  Memory  In  Memory 

of  of 

Sidney  Porter  Ruth  C. 

Born  in  Connecticut  Wife  of 

Feb.  2,  1790  Sidney  Porter 

Died  in  Greensboro,  N.  C.  Born  June  3,  1805 

Feb.  8,  1848  Died  Aug.  17,  1890 

"Asleep  in  Jesus." 

Sidney  Porter  was  a  tall,  jolly,  heavy-set  man  but 
with  little  of  the  force  or  thrift  of  the  family  into  which 
he  married.  He  came  from  Connecticut  to  North 
Carohna  about  the  year  1823  as  the  agent  of  a  clock 
company.  Several  of  the  clocks  that  he  sold  are  still 
doing  duty  in  Guilford  County  and  from  the  firm-name 
upon  them,  "Eight  day  repeating  brass  clock,  made 
by  C.  and  N.  Jerome,  Bristol,  Conn.,"  they  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  Sidney  Porter's  home  was 
In  Bristol.  "C.  and  N.  Jerome,"  writes  Judge  Epaph- 
roditus  Peck,  of  Bristol,  "were  the  principal  clock- 
makers  here  at  that  time.     They  used  to  send  out  as 

33 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

travelling  sellers  of  their  clocks  young  men  here;  and 
I  think  that  the  fact  that  Sidney  Porter  was  sent 
out  by  them  probably  indicates  that  he  was  then  living 
here.  Communities  were  then  isolated  and  self-centred 
and  they  were  not  likely  to  send  men  from  other  towns. 
I  do  not  find  any  traces  of  him,  however,  on  the  local 
records." 

Dr.  David  Worth,  father  of  Ruth,  made  minute 
inquiries  into  the  past  of  his  would-be  son-in-law  and 
became  convinced,  writes  a  descendant,  that  "Mr. 
Porter  was  a  man  of  strictly  upright  character  and 
worthy  of  his  daughter's  hand."  The  marriage  took 
place  at  Center,  the  ancestral  home  of  the  Worths,  on 
April  22,  1824,  and  was  really  a  double  celebration. 
Ruth  Worth's  brother  Jonathan,  who  was  later  to 
become  Governor  of  North  Carolina,  had  married 
Martitia  Daniel  of  Virginia  two  days  before,  and  the 
brother's  infare  served  as  wedding  reception  for  the 
sister.  It  was  a  notable  occasion  for  the  little  Quaker 
village  in  more  ways  than  mere  festivity.  Could  I 
have  been  present  when  the  infare  was  at  its  height, 
when  congratulation  and  prophecy  were  bringing  their 
blended  tributes  to  father  and  mother  and  to  son  and 
daughter,  I  should  not  have  been  an  unwelcome  visitor, 
I  think,  could  I  have  lifted  the  veil  of  the  future  for  a 
moment  and  said  to  Doctor  Worth  and  his  wife: 
"Eighty-three  years  from  now  a  statue  will  be  dedicated 
34 


ANCESTRY 

in  the  capital  of  North  CaroHna  to  one  of  Jonathan's 
grandsons,  the  first  statue  to  be  erected  by  popular 
subscription  to  a  North  Carolina  soldier,  and  the  name 
engraved  upon  it  will  be  that  of  Worth  Bagley;  and 
ninety  years  from  to-day  a  memorial  tablet  will  be 
dedicated  in  the  same  city  to  one  of  Ruth's  grandsons, 
the  only  monument  ever  erected  in  the  State  to  literary 
genius,  and  the  name  engraved  upon  it  will  be  that  of 
William  Sydney  Porter."  But  the  roads  of  destiny 
along  which  the  two  cousins  were  to  travel  to  their 
memorial  meeting-place  were  to  be  strangely  diverse. 

Sidney  Porter,  after  a  few  unsuccessful  years  spent 
in  a  neighbouring  county,  came  back  to  Guilford  and 
opened  a  carriage-making  and  general  repair  shop  in 
Greensboro,  where  he  worked  at  his  trade  till  his  death. 
His  shop  stood  on  West  Market  Street  where  his 
daughter's  school  was  later  to  be  erected,  the  only 
school  that  O.  Henry  ever  attended.  Sidney  Porter 
was  liked  for  his  genial  qualities  by  his  neighbours  but 
his  business  did  not  prosper.  In  1841  he  was  com- 
pelled to  mortgage  to  James  Sloan,  "trustee  for  the 
benefit  of  John  A.  Mebane  and  others,"  all  that  he  had 
even  to  his  working  tools  except  those  "allowed  to  be 
retained  by  debtors  who  are  workmen."  That  the 
mortgage  was  not  foreclosed  was  probably  due  to  the 
standing  and  aid  of  his  wife's  family  and  especially  to 
his  wife's  superior  thrift  and  eflaciency.     It  is  probable 

35 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

also  that  slave  labour  was  a  handicap  not  sufficiently 
taken  into  account  by  one  whose  training  had  been  in 
a  community  unaccustomed  to  the  peculiar  conditions 
that  confronted  the  white  labourer  in  the  South. 

That  O.  Henry's  grandfather  was  considered  a  man 
of  at  least  more  than  ordinary  directive  ability,  in  spite 
of  his  habit  of  frequent  tippling  which  is  still  remem- 
bered, appears  from  a  public  record  of  1837.  The  little 
town,  whose  corporate  limits  had  just  been  made  one 
mile  square,  appointed  groups  of  men  to  keep  the 
streets  in  order.  Four  supervisors,  representing  the 
four  quarters  of  the  town,  were  chosen  to  have  control 
of  the  new  work.  The  position  was  one  of  responsi- 
bility and  was  given  only  to  men  of  known  enterprise, 
as  is  shown  by  the  character  of  the  appointees.  James 
Sloan,  one  of  the  foremost  citizens  of  the  town  and 
later  to  be  Chief  Quartermaster  of  the  State  during 
the  war,  was  supervisor  of  the  first  division;  Sidney 
Porter,  of  the  second;  Henry  Humphreys,  the  richest 
man  in  Greensboro,  the  owner  of  the  Mount  Hecla 
Steam  Cotton  Mill,  and  the  first  to  prove  that  cotton 
could  be  profitably  manufactured  in  the  State,  of  the 
third;  and  Reuben  Dick,  pioneer  manufacturer  of  cigars, 
of  the  fourth. 

Sidney  Porter's  most  characteristic  trait,  however, 
the  quality  that  he  was  to  transmit  to  his  grandson,  was 
not  business  efficiency.  It  was  his  sunny  good  humour. 
36 


ANCESTRY 

"He  joked  and  laughed  at  his  work,"  says  an  old  citi- 
zen,* "and  was  especially  beloved  by  children.  He 
would  repair  their  toys  for  them  free  of  charge  and 
seemed  never  so  happy  as  when  they  gathered  about 
him  on  the  street  or  in  his  workshop.  He  even  let 
them  tamper  with  his  tools."  Fifty  years  later  they 
were  to  say  of  O.  Henry  in  Texas  :t  "  He  was  a  favourite 
with  the  children.  Those  that  have  grown  up  have 
pleasant  memories  of  a  jolly,  big-hearted  man  who 
never  failed  to  throw  himself  unreservedly  into  their 
games,  to  tell  them  stories  that  outrivalled  in  interest 
those  of  Uncle  Remus,  to  sing  delightfully  humorous 
f'ongs  to  the  merry  jangle  of  a  guitar,  or  to  draw  mirth- 
provoking  cartoons." 

The  memory  of  Sidney  Porter  that  survives  is  clear, 
therefore,  in  outline,  though  faint  in  content.  From 
him  O.  Henrj^  got  also  the  wanderlust  that  urged  him 
unceasingly  from  place  to  place.  Clocks  were  never 
as  interesting  to  Grandpa  Porter  as  were  the  faces  and 
places  that  he  saw  on  his  frequent  tours.  From  Hart- 
ford County,  Connecticut,  to  Guilford  County,  North 
Carolina,  from  Guilford  to  Randolph,  from  Randolph 
back  to  Guilford,  Sidney  Porter's  shifts  brought  him 
a  widened  fellowship  but  neither  prosperity  nor  geo- 
graphical  contentment.     He  handed   down  his  name 

*  David  Scott. 

tSee  "O  Henry's  Texas  Days,"  by  Hyder  E.  Rollins;(in  the  Bookman,  New  York,  October, 
1914). 

37 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

and  a  goodly  share  of  his  disposition  to  his  grandson 
and,  as  the  original  rolling  stone,  might  well  typify 
if  he  did  not  suggest  the  title  of  the  first  and  only 
periodical  that  O.  Henry  was  to  edit. 

Ruth  Worth,  wife  of  Sidney  Porter  and  grandmother 
of  O.  Henry,  was  what  is  known  in  North  Carolina 
parlance  as  "a  character,"  the  term  implying  marked 
individuality  and  will  power.  Her  parents  were  Quak- 
ers of  honourable  ancestry  and  of  distinguished  ser- 
vice. David  Worth,  the  father,  was  a  descendant  of 
John  Worth  who  emigrated  from  England,  during 
Cromwell's  reign,  and  settled  in  Massachusetts.  David 
Worth  became  a  physician,  was  active  in  the  Manu- 
mission Society  of  North  Carolina,  and  represented 
GuIKord  County  in  the  legislature  from  1822  to  1823. 
Through  him  O.  Henry  was  eighth  in  lineal  descent 
from  Peter  Folger,  Benjamin  Franklin's  grandfather. 
Eunice  Gardner,  whom  David  Worth  married  in  1798, 
was  born  in  North  Carolina,  though  her  parents  came 
from  Nantucket.  On  the  death  of  her  husband  she 
began  the  practice  of  medicine,  in  which  she  attained 
notable  success.  The  best-known  member  of  the 
family  was  Ruth  Worth's  brother  Jonathan,  who  was 
Governor  of  North  Carolina  from  1865  to  1868  and 
whom  the  Chronicle,  of  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  de- 
scribed as  "a  quiet  little  old  gentleman,  sharp  as  a  briar, 
and  with  a  well  of  wisdom  at  the  root  of  every  gray  hair." 
38 


ANCESTRY 

The  description  fits  Ruth  Worth  though  it  omits 
her  native  kindness  of  heart.  I  have  found  no  memorial 
tribute  to  this  grandmother  of  O.  Henry  that  does  not 
emphasize  her  loyalty  to  her  convictions,  her  practical 
eflSciency,  her  self-reliance,  and  her  goodness  of  heart. 
"So  genuine  was  her  kindness  of  heart  and  sympathy 
for  suffering,"  says  Church  Society,  "that  the  surest 
passports  to  her  ministry  were  sickness,  poverty,  and 
want,  and  long  will  she  be  remembered."  Says  an- 
other local  paper:  "She  was  perhaps  the  best  known 
and  most  useful,  self-sacrificing  woman  of  her  day.  A 
history  of  her  eventful  life  cannot  be  given  in  a  few 
words  but  it  would  require  a  volume  to  do  justice  to 
her  honoured  career."  Six  years  after  her  death  Mr. 
J.  R.  Bulla,  in  his  "Reminiscences  of  Randolph  County," 
compared  her  with  Pocahontas,  Lady  Arabella,  Flora 
McDonald,  Queen  Margaret,  and  Queen  Elizabeth, 
all  of  whom  were  hopelessly  and  pathetically  outclassed. 
"If  Queen  Elizabeth,"  he  concludes,  "had  had  as 
much  wisdom  as  Ruth  Porter,  her  reign  would  not  only 
be  extolled  by  the  English  but  by  all  the  civilized  world. 
No  Queen  that  Britain  has  ever  had,  had  the  eighth 
part  of  the  common  sense  of  Ruth  Porter." 

Left  a  widow  at  the  age  of  forty-three  with  seven 
children  and  a  mortgaged  home  she  set  to  work  first 
with  her  needle  and  then  with  a  few  boarders  to  earn  a 
support  for  herself  and  those  dependent  on  her.     To 

39 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

these  were  later  added  Shirley  Worth  Porter,  William 
Sydney  Porter  [O.  Henry],  and  David  Weir  Porter, 
the  motherless  children  of  her  son.  Dr.  Algernon 
Sidney  Porter.  David  Weir  died  in  early  childhood 
but  O.  Henry  lived  with  his  grandmother,  his  father, 
his  aunt,  "Miss  Lina,"  and  his  brother  Shirley  till 
1882  when  he  moved  to  Texas  Finding  neither  her 
needle  nor  her  table  sufficiently  remunerative  Mrs. 
Porter  studied  medicine  and  drugs  under  her  son  and 
became,  as  her  mother  had  become  before  her,  a  prac- 
titioner in  many  homes. 

She  also  collected  or  tried  to  collect  the  bills  due 
her  son.  It  was  not  good  form  in  those  days  for  a 
physician  to  dun  a  patient  or  even  to  send  in  a  state- 
ment of  the  amount  due.  The  patient  was  supposed 
to  settle  once  a  year  without  a  reminder.  This  did 
not  accord  with  Mrs.  Porter's  ways  of  doing  business 
and  she  used  to  make  out  the  bills  and  send  them. 
In  return  she  often  received  very  sharp  replies.  Doctor 
Porter  had  on  one  occasion  visited  two  maiden  ladies 
and  when  the  bill  was  sent  to  their  father  he  replied 
indignantly  that  Doctor  Porter's  visits  were  only  "social 
calls."  "Social  calls!"  wrote  O.  Henry's  grandmother, 
"I  want  you  to  understand  that  my  son  Algernon  don't 
make  social  calls  on  maiden  ladies  at  two  o'clock  in 
the  morning  and  they  a-suffering  with  cramp  colic." 
The  bill  was  paid. 
40 


ANCESTRY 

Her  son's  practice  declined  steadily,  however,  and 
the  household  was  often  in  sore  straits.  Mrs.  Porter's 
rather  intermittent  calls,  Miss  Lina's  little  school,  and 
O.  Henry's  meagre  salary  as  clerk  in  his  uncle  Clark 
Porter's  drug  store  were  practically  the  only  means  of 
family  support  during  the  latter  years  of  O.  Henry's 
life  in  his  native  State.  One  cannot  but  feel  a  keen 
regret  that  neither  the  grandmother,  nor  the  father, 
nor  the  aunt  lived  to  witness  or  even  to  fore-glimpse  the 
fame  of  the  youngest  member  of  the  Porter  household. 
Indeed  the  chief  trait  which  Mrs.  Sidney  Porter  saw 
in  her  grandson  was  his  constitutional  shyness.  "I 
sometimes  regret,"  she  remarked,  "that  we  did  not 
send  him  to  Trinity  College,  for  Dr.  Braxton  Craven 
makes  every  student  feel  that  he,  Braxton  Craven,  is 
the  greatest  man  on  earth  and  the  student  himself 
the  next  greatest."  An  education  away  from  home, 
however,  could  never  have  been  seriously  considered. 
"I  would  have  given  my  eyes  for  a  college  education," 
O.  Henry  said,  when  his  daughter  Margaret  brought 
home  her  college  diploma. 

O.  Henry's  father.  Dr.  Algernon  Sidney  Porter, 
was  the  oldest  of  the  seven  children.  He  was  born  in 
1825  and  died  in  1888.  If  O,  Henry  received  from  his 
mother  his  gift  of  repartee,  his  artistic  temperament, 
and  a  certain  instinctive  shyness,  he  received  from  his 
father  his  sympathy  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 

41 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

men,  his  over-flowing  generosity,  his  utter  indifference 
to  caste,  in  a  word  a  large  share  of  his  characteristic 
and  ineradicable  democracy.  To  the  same  source 
may  also  be  ascribed,  through  association  at  least, 
some  of  O.  Henry's  constructive  ingenuity. 

Doctor  Porter  was  for  several  years  the  best-known 
and  the  best-loved  physician  in  Guilford  County.  An 
old  friend*  of  his,  to  whom  the  memory  of  Doctor  Porter 
brought  tears,  said  recently :  "  He  was  the  best-hearted 
man  I  ever  knew;  honest,  high-toned,  and  generous. 
Rain  or  shine,  sick  or  well,  he  would  visit  the  poorest 
family  in  the  county.  He  would  have  been  a  rich 
man  if  he  had  collected  a  half  of  what  was  due  him. 
His  iron-gray  hair  and  the  shape  of  his  head  reminded 
you  of  Zeb  Vance."  His  office,  like  his  father's  before 
him,  became  a  sort  of  general  repair  shop,  though  in  a 
different  way.  "I  shall  never  forget,"  said  the  late 
Joe  Reece,  editor  of  the  Daily  Record  of  Greensboro, 
"something  that  happened  in  my  boyhood.  A  giant 
of  a  negro  had  been  cut  down  the  back  in  a  street  fight. 
He  passed  me  making  straight  for  Doctor  Porter's 
office,  and  yelling  like  a  steam  piano.  Everybody  in 
those  days  when  they  got  hurt  made  for  Doctor  Por- 
ter's ofl&ce  as  straight  as  a  June  shad  in  fly -time.  When 
I  got  to  the  little  office,  I'll  be  john-squizzled  if  Alg. 
Porter  didn't  have   that   darky   down   on   the  floor. 

*  David  Scott. 


ANCESTRY 

He  was  sitting  on  him  and  sewing  him  up  and  lecturing 
to  him  about  the  evils  of  intemperance  all  at  the  same 
time.  He  lectured  sort  o'  unsteadily  on  that  theme 
but  nobody  could  beat  his  sewing." 

A  few  of  the  older  citizens  kept  Doctor  Porter  as 
their  physician  to  the  last  in  spite  of  his  lessening 
interest  in  the  practice  of  medicine.  "  I  never  knew  his 
equal,"  said  one.*  "You  got  better  as  soon  as  he 
entered  the  room.  He  was  the  soul  of  humour  and 
geniality  and  resourcefulness  and  all  my  children  were 
devoted  to  him." 

My  own  memory  of  Doctor  Porter  is  of  a  small  man 
with  a  huge  head  and  a  long  beard;  quiet,  gentle,  soft- 
voiced,  self-effacing,  who  looked  at  you  as  if  from 
another  world  and  who  walked  with  a  step  so  noise- 
less, so  absolutely  echo-less,  as  to  attract  attention. 
This  characteristic  was  also  inherited  by  O.  Henry 
who  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  treading  on  down. 
They  used  to  say  of  Doctor  Porter  that  he  had  a  far 
more  scientific  knowledge  of  medicine  and  drugs  than 
any  other  physician  in  the  community.  He  had  studied 
under  Dr.  David  P.  Weir,  in  whose  drug  store  he 
had  clerked,  and  for  a  time  he  lectured  on  chemistry 
at  the  Edgeworth  Female  Seminary,  of  which  Doctor 
Weir  was  principal  from  1844  to  1845. 

Doctor  Porter's  interests,  however,  became  more  and 


♦Mrs.  Robert  P.  Dick. 

43 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

more  absorbed  in  fruitless  inventions  and  remained 
less  and  less  with  the  problems  or  with  the  actual 
practice  of  medicine.  A  perpetual  motion  water- 
wheel,  a  new-fangled  churn,  a  washing  machine,  a 
flying  machine,  a  horseless  carriage  to  be  run  by  steam, 
and  a  cotton-picking  contrivance  that  was  to  take  the 
place  of  negro  labour  became  obsessions  with  him.  In 
the  winter  time  his  room  would  be  littered  with  wooden 
wheels  and  things  piled  under  the  bed,  but  in  the  sum- 
mer time  he  moved  or  was  moved  out  to  the  barn. 
In  one  of  his  last  interviews  O.  Henry  said  that  he 
often  found  himseK  recalling  the  days  when  as  a  boy 
he  used  to  lie  prone  and  dreaming  on  the  old  barn 
floor  while  his  father  worked  quietly  and  assiduously 
on  his  perpetual  motion  water-wheel.  "He  was  so 
absent-minded,"  O.  Henry  said,  "that  he  would 
frequently  start  out  without  his  hat  and  we  would  be 
sent  to  carry  it  to  him."  A  schoolmate*  of  O.  Henry 
writes  of  those  days : 

Will  [0.  Henry]  was  a  great  lover  of  fun  and  mischief.  When 
we  were  quite  small  his  father,  Dr.  A.  S.  Porter,  fell  a  victim  to 
the  delusion  that  he  had  solved  the  problem  of  perpetual  motion, 
and  finally  abandoned  a  splendid  practice  and  spent  nearly  all 
his  time  working  on  his  machines.  His  mother,  who  was  a  most 
practical  and  sensible  old  woman,  made  him  betake  himself  and 
his  machines  to  the  barn,  and  these  Will  and  I,  always  being  careful 
to  wait  for  a  time  when  the  doctor  was  out,  would  proceed  to 
demolish,  destroying  often  in  a  few  minutes  that  which  it  had 

*John  H.  Dillard,  of  Murphy,  N.  C. 

44 


ANCESTRY 

taken  much  time  and  labor  to  construct.  While,  of  course,  I 
do  not  know  the  fact,  I  strongly  suspect  that  the  doctor's  mother 
inspired  these  outrages. 

Scientists    distinguish    three    kinds    of    inheritance. 
In  the  case  of  "blended"  inheritance,  the  child,  Uke 
a  folk-song,  bears  the  marks  of  composite  authorship ; 
in    "prepotent"    inheritance,    one   parent   or   remoter 
ancestor  is  supposed  to  be  most  effective  in  stamping 
the    offspring;    and    in    "exclusive"    inheritance,    the 
character  of  the  descendant  is  definitely  that  of  one 
ancestor.     Though  the  classification  rests  on  no  well- 
established  basis  and  illustrates  the  use  of  three  obedi- 
ent adjectives  rather  than  the  operation  of  ascertained 
laws,  it  is  at  least  convenient  and  may  serve  pro  tern 
till  a  wiser  survey  replaces  it.     It  is  easy  to  see  that 
O.  Henry  was  the  beneficiary  not  of  an  exclusive  but 
of  a  blended  inheritance.     "This  is  a  country,"  he 
reminds  us,  "of  mix-ups."     But  the  mother  strain,  if 
not  prepotent  in  the  sense  of  science,  seems  to  me  to 
have  outweighed  that  of  any  other  relative  of  whom 
we  have  record. 


45 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

BIRTHPLACE   AND    EARLY   YEARS 

O.  HENRY  once  wrote  from  New  York : 

I  was  born  and  raised  in  "No'th  Ca'Uina"  and  at  eighteen  went 
to  Texas  and  ran  wild  on  the  prairies.  Wild  yet,  but  not  so  wild. 
Can't  get  to  loving  New  Yorkers.  Live  all  alone  in  a  great  big 
two  rooms  on  quiet  old  Irving  Place  three  doors  from  Wash. 
Irving's  old  home.  Kind  of  lonesome.  Was  thinking  lately 
(since  the  April  moon  commenced  to  shine)  how  I'd  like  to  be  down 
South,  where  I  could  happen  over  to  Miss  Ethel's  or  Miss  Sallie's 
and  sit  down  on  the  porch — not  on  a  chair— on  the  edge  of  the 
porch,  and  lay  my  straw  hat  on  the  steps  and  lay  my  head  back 
against  the  honeysuckle  on  the  post — and  just  talk.  And  Miss 
Ethel  would  go  in  directly  (they  say  "presently"  up  here)  and 
bring  out  the  guitar.  She  would  complain  that  the  E  string  was 
broken,  but  no  one  would  believe  her;  and  pretty  soon  all  of  us 
would  be  singing  the  "Swanee  River"  and  "In  the  Evening  by 
the  Moonlight"  and — oh,  gol  darn  it,  what's  the  use  of  wishing.? 

These  words,  in  which  O.  Henry  almost  succeeds  in 
expressing  the  inexpressible,  are  cited  by  Miss  Mar- 
guerite Campion  in  Harper's  Weekly"^  as  an  example 
of  "charm."  "For  charm,"  she  says,  "is  three  parts 
softness.  Did  not  O.  Henry,  almost  more  than  any 
other  American  writer,  possess  it,  and  was  he  not, 
until  the  day  of  his  death,  the  soft-hearted  advocate 

♦For  November  27, 1915. 

46 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

of  humanity,  the  friend-of-all-the-world,  after  the 
only  original  model  of  Kim,  the  vagabond?  Charm 
flowed  from  him  through  his  peculiarly  personal  pen 
into  all  that  he  wrote." 

The  passage  is  reproduced  here  not  to  illustrate 
charm — though  every  word  is  instinct  with  it — but  as 
an  example  of  O.  Henry's  ingrained  affection  for  the 
place  of  his  birth.  A  boy's  life  in  a  small  Southern 
town  immediately  after  the  war,  one  phase  of  that  life 
at  least,  was  never  better  portrayed  than  these  lines 
portray  it,  and  whatever  facts  or  events  may  be  added 
in  this  chapter  may  best  be  interpreted  against  the 
l)ackground  of  the  April  moon,  the  porch,  the  honey- 
suckle, and  the  guitar  with  the  broken  E  string.  A 
few  years  later  O.  Henry  said,  of  the  novel  that  he 
hoped  to  write:  "The  'hero'  of  the  story  will  be  a  man 
born  and  'raised'  in  a  somnolent  little  Southern  town. 
His  education  is  about  a  common  school  one,  but  he 
learns  afterward  from  reading  and  life." 

It  is  of  this  little  town  and  of  the  formative  influences 
that  passed  from  it  into  O.  Henry  that  we  purpose 
in  this  chapter  to  write.  Had  William  Sydney  Porter 
not  been  reared  in  "a  somnolent  little  Southern  town" 
he  would  hardly  have  developed  into  the  O.  Henry 
that  we  know  to-day.  He  was  all  his  life  a  dreamer, 
and  if  the  "City  of  Flowers"  had  already  become  the 
"Gate  City"  during  his  boyhood,  if  the  wooded  slopes 

47 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

had  already  been  covered  with  the  roaring  cotton 
mills,  the  dreamer  whose  dreams  were  to  become  litera- 
ture would  hardly  have  found  in  the  place  of  his  birth 
either  the  time  or  the  clime  in  which  to  develop  his 
dream  faculties.  The  somnolent  little  Southern  town, 
moreover,  which  he  would  have  sketched  if  he  had 
lived  to  write  his  literary  autobiography,  deserves 
more  than  a  mere  mention.  Not  only  was  it  the  place 
that  nurtured  him  and  his  forebears,  that  released  his 
constructive  powers,  that  held  a  place  in  his  dreams 
to  the  end;  it  had  also  an  individuality  of  its  own  and 
a  history  not  without  dignity  and  distinction. 

Greensboro  took  its  name  from  General  Nathanael 
Greene,  of  Rhode  Island.  Five  miles  northwest  of  the 
town,  on  March  15,  1781,  the  great  Rhode  Islander 
fought  his  greatest  battle,  that  of  Guilford  Court 
House.  The  fact  that  the  battle  was  not  incontest- 
ably  a  victory  for  either  Greene  or  Cornwallis  has,  by 
multiplying  discussion,  been  an  advantage  in  keeping 
alive  the  memory  of  the  conflict  and  of  the  issues  in- 
volved. The  boys  and  girls  of  Greensboro  know  more 
about  the  battle  and  about  the  traditions  that  still 
hover  around  the  field  than  they  would  have  known 
if  either  Greene  or  Cornwallis  had  been  decisively  and 
undebatably  defeated.  Mark  Twain  says  that  every 
American  is  born  with  the  date  1492  engraved  on  his 
brain.  The  children  of  Guilford  County  are  born 
48 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

with  March  15,  1781,  similarly  impressed.  Since  the 
publication,  however,  of  Schenck's  "Memorial  Volume 
of  the  GuiKord  Battle  Ground  Company,"  in  1893, 
historians  have  begun  to  recognize  that  in  any  fair 
perspective  the  battle  of  Guilford  Court  House  must 
rank  as  a  turning  point  in  the  Revolutionary  War. 
Ultimate  victory  was  assured  and  would  have  come  to 
the  patriot  arms  without  the  contribution  of  this  battle, 
but  it  would  not  have  come  at  Yorktown  seven  months 
and  four  days  later.  A  participant  in  the  battle  wrote 
immediately  afterward  :* 

The  enemy  were  so  beaten  that  we  should  have  disputed  the 
victory  could  we  have  saved  our  artillery,  but  the  General  thought 
that  it  was  a  necessary  sacrifice.  The  spirits  of  the  soldiers  would 
have  been  aflFected  if  the  cannon  had  been  sent  off  the  field,  and 
in  this  woody  country  cannon  cannot  always  be  sent  off  at  a 
critical  moment. 

The  General,  by  his  abihties  and  good  conduct  and  by  his 
activity  and  bravery  in  the  field,  has  gained  the  confidence  and 
respect  of  the  army  and  the  country  to  an  amazing  degree.  You 
would,  from  the  countenances  of  our  men,  believe  they  had  been 
decidedly  victorious.  They  are  in  the  highest  spirits,  and  appear 
most  ardently  to  wish  to  engage  the  enemy  again.  The  enemy 
are  much  embarrassed  by  their  wounded.  When  we  consider 
the  nakedness  of  our  troops  and  of  course  their  want  of  discipline, 
their  numbers,  and  the  loose,  irregular  manner  in  which  we  came 
into  the  field,  I  think  we  have  done  wonders.  I  rejoice  at  our 
success,  and  were  our  exertions  and  sacrifices  published  to  the 
world  as  some  commanding  officers  would  have  published  them, 
we  should  have  received  more  applause  than  our  modesty  claims. 

*The  letter  was  published  in  the  New  Jersey  State  Gazette  of  April  11,  1781. 

49 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

When  the  battle  was  fought  there  was  of  course  no 
Greensboro.  The  county  seat  of  GuiKord  was  Martins- 
ville, where  the  court  house  was,  where  the  battle  took 
place,  and  where  the  court  records  of  November  21, 
1787,  remind  us  that  "Andrew  Jackson  produced  a 
license  from  the  judges  of  the  Superior  Court  of  Law 
and  Equity  to  practise  law  and  was  admitted  as  an 
attorney  of  this  court."  But  twenty -eight  years  after 
the  battle  the  court  records  read:  "Court  adjourned 
from  the  town  of  Martinsville  to  the  town  of  Greens- 
boro, the  centre  of  the  county,  to  meet  at  10  o'clock  to- 
morrow, Friday,  19  May,  1809.  .  .  .  According  to 
adjournment  the  court  met  Friday,  19  May,  at  Greens- 
boro, for  the  first  time."  This  procedure  marked  the 
death  of  Martinsville  and  the  birth  of  Greensboro. 
But  the  historic  old  court  house  at  Martinsville  was  to 
render  a  patriotic  service  that  its  builders  could  never 
have  anticipated.  Some  of  the  great  oak  logs  of  which 
it  was  built,  long  seasoned  and  carefully  hewn,  were 
sold  year  by  year  to  the  builders  of  new  homes  in  the 
new  county  seat.  Some  of  them  were  sawed  up  into 
weather-boarding  while  others  were  only  shortened 
or  placed  just  as  they  were  in  the  new  buildings.  These 
scarred  memorials  of  Revolutionary  days  may  not 
have  meant  much  to  the  generation  that  utilized  them, 
but  to  the  younger  generation  of  another  age  they  were 
as  full  of  historic  romance  as  the  Spanish  ships  that 
50 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

young  Longfellow  used  to  gaze  at  in  the  wharves  of 
his  native  Portland.  One  of  these  logs  formed  a  part 
of  the  Porter  home,  which  was  built  of  logs  weather- 
boarded  over,  and  O.  Henry  used  to  exhibit  with  boyish 
pride  a  treasured  Indian  arrow-head  which  he  had 
found  sticking  in  it. 

Guilford  Battle  Ground  is  now  covered  with  stately 
memorials,  more  than  thirty  monuments  or  shafts  tes- 
tifying to  the  pride  that  North  Carolina  and  Virginia 
and  Maryland  and  Delaware  and  the  national  Govern- 
ment itself  feel  in  the  service  rendered  by  the  men  who 
fell  or  fought  on  this  field.  In  addition  to  the  great 
monument  to  Nathanael  Greene  there  is  a  monument 
to  "No  North,  No  South."  There  is  another  to  the 
*'Hon.  Lieut.  Colonel  Stuart,  of  the  2nd  Battalion  of 
the  Queen's  Guards";  it  was  erected  on  the  spot  where 
he  fell  "by  the  Guilford  Battle  Ground  Company  in 
honour  of  a  brave  foeman."  But  during  0.  Henry's 
boyhood  and  till  he  left  Greensboro  no  organized  at- 
tempt had  been  made  to  redeem  the  field  from  its 
century  of  neglect.  It  was  only  an  expanse  of  red 
soil  and  woodland,  but  an  expanse  that  by  its  very 
bareness  stimulated  the  constructive  imagination. 

There  was  no  part  of  the  ground  that  O.  Henry  did 
not  know.  Bullets,  buttons,  pieces  of  swords  or  shells 
or  flint-locks  could  be  picked  up  after  an  hour's  search. 
The  visitor  to  the  battlefield  does  not  now  lose  himself 

51 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

in  a  reverie;  he  reads  history  as  recorded  and  inter- 
preted for  him  on  monument  and  slab,  on  boulder  and 
arch.  But  in  the  'seventies  the  field  had  to  be  recon- 
structed in  imagination,  the  contestants  visualized, 
the  lines  of  battle  regrouped,  the  sound  of  gun  and 
drum  made  audible  again,  the  charge  and  counter- 
charge reenacted.  If  the  field  is  history  now,  it 
was  the  stuff  that  dreams  are  made  of  then,  and  to 
no  one  was  its  appeal  stronger  or  more  fertile  in  storied 
suggestion  than  to  O.  Henry.  "I  have  never  known 
any  one  who  read  history  with  such  avidity,"  said  Mrs. 
R.  M.  Hall,  in  whose  home  on  the  Texas  ranch  O.  Henry 
lived.  "He  not  only  devoured  Hume,  Macaulay, 
Green,  and  Guizot,  but  made  their  scenes  and  char- 
acters live  again  in  vivid  conversation." 

But  though  General  Greene  gave  Greensboro  its 
name,  the  real  founder  of  the  town  was  an  old-field 
school  teacher,  one  of  those  rare  characters  who,  un- 
known to  history,  seem  endowed  with  the  power  to 
vitalize  every  forward-looking  agency  of  their  times 
and  to  touch  constructively  every  personality  that 
comes  within  the  orbit  of  their  influence.  The  year 
1824,  which  witnessed  the  marriage  of  Sidney  Porter 
and  Ruth  Worth,  O.Henry's  grandparents,  witnessed  the 
death  at  the  age  of  one  hundred  years  of  David  Caldwell, 
the  man  who,  more  than  any  other,  made  Guilford 
County  and  Greensboro  known  beyond  State  lines. 
52 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

It  lias  been  already  said  that  when  the  battle  of 
Guilford  Court  House  was  fought  there  was  no  Greens- 
boro. There  was,  however,  the  triangle  in  which 
Greensboro  was  to  be  placed,  a  triangle  formed  by 
David  Caldwell's  log  schoolhouse  and  his  two  Presby- 
terian churches,  Alamance  and  Buffalo.  The  school- 
house,  which  was  also  his  home,  stood  on  the  road  be- 
tween Guilford  Court  House  and  what  was  to  be  Greens- 
boro. To  it  came  students  from  every  Southern  State 
and  from  it  went  five  governors,  more  than  fifty  min- 
isters, and  an  uncounted  number  of  teachers  and 
trained  citizens.  David  Caldwell  was  a  Scotch -Irishman 
from  Lancaster  County,  Pennsylvania,  a  graduate  of 
Princeton,  a  teacher,  preacher,  carpenter,  farmer, 
doctor,  and  patriot. 

David  Caldwell  had  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Revo- 
lution ten  years  before  the  storm  broke  and  from  his 
schoolroom  and  pulpit  had  prepared  his  countrymen 
for  the  issue  which  he  plainly  foresaw.  He  had  reasoned 
with  Tryon  and  Cornwallis  and  had  given  valuable 
counsel  to  Greene.  Though  a  price  had  been  set  upon 
his  head  he  was  with  his  two  congregations  when  they 
faced  the  British  at  Alamance  and  Guilford  Court  House. 
The  greatest  personal  loss  that  had  come  to  him  was  in 
the  wanton  burning  of  his  books,  letters,  and  private 
papers.  Armful  after  armful  of  these  memorials  of  an 
heroic  past  were  dumped  by  Cornwallis 's  troopers  into 

53 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

the  flaming  oven  In  tlie  doctor's  backyard.  Though  his 
books  were  his  tools,  he  was  often  heard  to  say  that  he 
regretted  most  of  all  the  loss  of  his  private  papers  which 
constituted  a  sort  of  first-hand  history  of  the  times. 
Had  these  been  preserved  Doctor  Caldwell's  name  would 
probably  appear  in  every  record  of  the  original  sources  of 
colonial  and  Revolutionary  history,  while  now  it  appears 
in  none. 

His  life  was  written  eighteen  years  after  his  death 
by  Dr.  Eli  W.  Caruthers,  and  he  appears  as  one  of 
the  characters  in  at  least  two  historical  novels,  "Ala- 
mance; or,  the  Great  and  Final  Experiment,"  written 
by  Dr.  Calvin  H.  Wiley,  in  1847,  and  "The  Master 
of  the  Red  Buck  and  the  Bay  Doe,"  a  recent  work  by 
Mr.  William  Laurie  Hill.  Doctor  Wiley's  book  Is 
mentioned  by  Mr.  William  Dean  Howells  as  having 
"bewitched"  him  in  his  boyhood:* 

At  nine  years  of  age  he  [Mr.  Howells]  read  the  history  of  Greece, 
and  the  history  of  Rome,  and  he  knew  that  Goldsmith  wrote  them. 
One  night  his  father  told  the  boys  all  about  Don  Quixote;  and  a 
little  while  after  he  gave  my  boy  the  book.  He  read  it  over  and 
over  again;  but  he  did  not  suppose  it  was  a  novel.  It  was  his 
elder  brother  who  read  novels,  and  a  novel  was  like  "Handy 
Andy,"  or  "Harry  Lorrequer,"  or  the  "Bride  of  Lammermoor." 
His  brother  had  another  novel  which  they  preferred  to  either; 
it  was  in  Harper's  old  "Library  of  Select  Novels,"  and  was  called 
"Alamance;  or,  the  Great  and  Final  Experiment,"  and  it  was  about 
the  life  of  some  sort  of  community  in  North  Carolina.     It  be- 


*See  "A  Boy's  Town,"  pages  21-22. 

54 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

witched  them,  and  though  my  boy  could  not  afterward  recall  a 
single  fact  or  figure  in  it,  he  could  bring  before  his  mind's  eye  every 
trait  of  its  outward  aspect. 

But  David  Caldwell  lives  most  securely  not  in  books 
but  in  the  men  that  he  made  and  in  the  widening  com- 
pass of  their  influence.  The  Guilford  County  of  his 
day  was  peculiarly  cosmopolitan  and  even  international 
in  its  make-up.  There  were  the  Scotch-Irish  in  and 
around  Greensboro,  then  as  now  the  masterful  stock; 
there  were  the  German  exiles  from  the  Palatinate  in 
the  eastern  part  of  the  county;  and  there  were  the 
English  Quakers,  who  came  via  Nantucket,  and  a 
little  band  of  Welshmen  to  the  west  and  south.  Out 
of  the  clash  or  coincidence  of  these  varied  racial  stocks 
the  history  of  the  county  was  builded.  But  all  ele- 
ments went  to  school  to  David  Caldwell  or  to  teachers 
trained  by  him. 

The  Worth  and  Porter  families  form  no  exception. 
Jonathan  W^orth,  Quaker  and  future  governor,  came 
from  Center  to  Greensboro  to  be  taught  and  to  teach 
in  the  Greensboro  Academy,  a  Presbyterian  school 
taught  by  a  pupil  and  son  of  David  Caldwell.  In 
1821  "the  trustees  of  the  Academy  think  it  necessary 
to  announce  to  the  public  that  they  have  employed 
Mr.  Jonathan  Worth  as  an  assistant  teacher.  No 
young  gentleman,  we  believe,  sustains  a  fairer  char- 
acter than  Mr.  Worth."     When  Jonathan  Worth  began 

55 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

the  study  of  law  it  was  under  Archibald  D.  Murphey, 
another  graduate  of  David  Caldwell's  log  school.  For 
fifty  years  after  his  death  the  educational  currents 
flowing  through  the  county  can  be  traced  back  to  a 
common  source  in  David  Caldwell. 

But  the  channel  through  which  he  was  chiefly  to 
exert  an  influence  upon  the  Porter  family  was  Governor 
John  Motley  Morehead,  the  founder  of  Edge  worth 
Female  Seminary.  Edge  worth,  as  we  have  seen, 
played  an  important  role  in  the  lives  of  O.  Henry's 
parents,  but  after  the  buildings  were  burned  the 
spacious  lawn  was  to  serve  in  a  peculiar  way  as  play- 
ground and  dreamland  for  the  son.  Mr.  Morehead 
attended  David  Caldwell's  school  when  the  old  dominie 
had  passed  his  ninetieth  year  but  when  his  ability  as  a 
teacher  and  his  range  of  vision  as  a  citizen  seemed  to 
have  suffered  no  diminution.  Governor  Morehead 
was  an  admirer  and  close  reader  of  the  novels  of  Maria 
Edgeworth  and  of  her  earlier  "Essays  on  Practical 
Education,"  written  in  collaboration  with  her  father. 

Miss  Edgeworth's  favourite  contrast  between  the 
social  careers  of  young  women  who  had  been  sanely 
educated  at  home  and  those  who  had  not,  her  constant 
balancing  of  the  simple  affections  against  false  senti- 
ment and  sentimentality,  her  pitting  of  the  "dasher" 
and  "title-hunter"  against  modesty  and  native  worth 
appealed  strongly  to  a  man  who  had  five  daughters  to 
56 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

be  educated  but  who  could  find  no  girls'  school  that 
met  the  Maria  Edgeworth  requirements.  He  founded, 
therefore,  a  school  between  his  own  residence.  Bland- 
wood,  and  the  Porter  home,  which  he  called  the  Edge- 
worth  Female  Seminary.  It  was  the  only  advanced 
school  for  women  in  North  Carolina  that  was  founded, 
owned,  and  financed  not  by  a  board  or  a  church  but  by 
an  individual.  Teachers  were  brought  from  France 
and  Germany,  the  grounds  were  beautifully  kept,  new 
buildings  were  added,  and  till  the  beginning  of  the  war 
Edgeworth  enjoyed  a  growing  and  generous  patronage 
from  the  South  and  West. 

The  war  converted  Edgeworth  into  a  hospital  for 
both  Confederate  and  Federal  soldiers.  As  the  build- 
ings were  almost  opposite  the  Porter  home,  O.  Henry's 
father  was  kept  busy  in  the  practice  of  his  profession. 
The  old  Presbyterian  Church,  which  O.  Henry's  grand- 
mother attended,  had  also  to  do  hospital  duty  by  turns, 
and  thus  father  and  grandmother  were  not  only  in 
constant  demand  but  were  laying  up  a  store  of  Interest- 
ing reminiscence  that  was  to  become  a  part  of  O.  Henry's 
heritage  In  later  years.  The  war  took  its  toll  of  Greens- 
boro citizens  though  there  was  little  destruction  of 
property.  The  town  and  county  and  State  had  been 
overwhelmingly  for  union  and  against  secession,  but 
when  the  order  came  to  North  Carolina  to  send  troops 
with  which  to  fight  her  seceding  neighbours,  all  parties 

57 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

were  united  In  opposition.  The  contest  then  became, 
as  O.  Henry  puts  it,*  "the  rebeUion  of  the  abohtionists 
against  the  secessionists."  No  battle  was  fought  in 
Guilford  County,  but  Greensboro  loomed  into  sudden 
prominence  at  the  close  of  the  war  and  again  a  few 
years  after  the  close. 

Jefferson  Davis  was  in  Danville,  Virginia,  fifty 
miles  from  Greensboro,  when  he  heard  on  April  9,  1865, 
that  General  Lee  had  surrendered.  He  came  immedi- 
ately to  Greensboro  where  the  last  conference  was 
held.  The  members  of  his  cabinet  were  with  him  and 
he  was  met  in  Greensboro  by  General  Joseph  E.  John- 
ston and  General  Beauregard.  It  was  perhaps  the 
saddest  moment  of  Mr.  Davis's  life.  Hope  was  gone, 
but  his  instinctive  thoughtfulness  for  others  did  not 
desert  him.  Knowing  that  the  home  that  should 
shelter  him  might  be  burned  the  next  day  by  Federal 
troops  he  declined  all  offers  of  hospitality  and  remained 
in  the  old-fashioned  cars  that  had  brought  him  from 
Virginia.  He  was  still  for  fight  but  consented  reluc- 
tantly that  General  Johnston  should  open  correspond- 
ence with  General  Sherman.  A  little  later  thirty 
thousand  of  Sherman's  troops  entered  the  town  under 
General  J.  D.  Cox  and  soon  thirty-seven  thousand 
Confederates  under  General  Johnston  were  paroled. 
Greensboro  looked  like  a  tiny  islet  in  a  sea  of  mingled 

•In  "Buried  Treasure." 

58 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

blue  and  gray.  The  boys  of  the  town  gathered  up 
eagerly  and  wonderingly  the  old  muskets  and  swords 
thrown  away  by  the  Confederates  and  built  stories 
about  them  or  fought  mimic  battles  with  them  long 
after  the  hands  that  had  once  held  them  were  dust. 
There  was  little  disorder,  for  all  knew  that  the  end  had 
come  and  the  soldiers  were  busy  fraternizing.  Rec- 
onciliation, however,  was  harder  to  Confederate  wives 
and  mothers  than  to  Confederate  soldiers.  Mrs. 
Letitia  Walker,  a  daughter  of  Governor  Morehead, 
describes  the  scene  as  follows : 


President  and  Mrs.  Davis  remained  over  one  night  in  Greensboro 
in  their  car,  declining  the  invitation  of  my  father,  for  fear  the 
Federal  troops  should  burn  the  house  that  sheltered  him  for  one 
night.  IVlemminger  and  his  wife  remained  over  several  days  with 
us  for  a  rest,  bringing  with  them  Vice-President  Alexander  H. 
Stephens,  so  pale  and  careworn;  but  the  price  was  on  his  head, 
and  we  tearfully  bade  him  Godspeed.  Never  can  I  forget  the 
farewell  scene  when  the  brave  and  grand  Joseph  E.  Johnston  called 
to  say  farewell,  with  tears  running  down  his  brown  cheeks.  Not 
a  word  was  spoken,  but  silent  prayers  went  up  for  his  preservation. 

.  .  But  one  fine  morning,  amid  the  sound  of  bugles  and  trumpets 
and  bands  of  music,  the  Federals  entered  Greensboro,  fully  thirty 
thousand  strong,  to  occupy  the  town  for  some  time.  General 
Cox  was  in  command.  He,  Burnside,  Schofield,  and  Kilpatrick, 
with  their  staffs,  sent  word  to  the  mayor  that  they  would  occupy 
the  largest  house  in  town  that  night,  and  until  their  headquarters 
were  estabUshed.  They  came  to  Blandwood,  which  already 
sheltered  three  families  and  several  sick  soldiers.  My  father 
received  them  courteously  and  received  them  as  guests — an  act 
which  General  Cox  appreciated,  and  after  placing  his  tent  in  the 

59 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

rear  of  Judge  Robert  P.  Dick's  house,  he  rode  up  every  afternoon 
to  consult  with  the  Honourable  John  A.  Gilmer  and  my  father 
on  the  conditions  of  the  country.  He  was  a  most  courteous  and 
elegant  man,  and  in  many  ways  displayed  his  sympathy  with  us. 
.  .  .  Very  soon  a  note  was  received  announcing  the  arrival  of  Mrs 
Cox  and  the  hope  that  Mrs.  Gilmer  and  Mrs.  Walker  would  do 
him  the  honour  to  call  upon  his  wife.  .  .  .  She  received  us  in 
Mrs.  Dick's  parlor,  simple  in  manner,  dignified,  bordering  on  stiff- 
ness— in  contrast  with  the  genial  manners  of  her  husband.  .  .  . 
A  grand  review  of  all  the  troops  was  to  be  held  on  the  next  Saturday, 
and  a  pavil  on  was  built  in  the  centre  of  town — upper  seats  to 
be  occupied  by  the  Federal  ladies.  By  nine  o'clock  a  four-horse 
ambulance  with  outriders  was  sent  with  a  note  from  General  Cox 
again  "begging  the  honour  of  Mrs.  Gilmer's  and  Mrs.  Walker's 
company,  with  Mrs.  Cox  to  witness  the  review."  Mrs.  Gilmer 
told  her  husband  that  she  refused  to  add  one  more  spectator  to 
the  pageant,  for  it  was  an  enemy's  bullet  that  had  maimed  her 
only  son  for  life.  Violent,  decisive  words,  and  very  ugly  ones, 
too,  were  spoken  by  the  other  lady;  but  a  peremptory  order  was 
given,  and  with  bitter  tears,  accompanied  by  one  of  our  soldiers, 
she  went  to  the  pavilion,  to  be  received  so  graciously  by  Mrs.  Cox. 


Three  months  later  there  came  to  Greensboro  a 
man  who  was  to  give  its  Reconstruction  history  a  unique 
interest  and  whose  departure  after  a  sojourn  of  thirteen 
years  was  to  be  promptly  chronicled  by  an  O.  Henry 
cartoon.  Albion  Winegar  Tourgee,  author  of  "The 
Fool's  Errand,  by  One  of  the  Fools,"  was  the  first 
carpet-bagger  to  enter  the  "somnolent  little  Southern 
town"  on  the  heels  of  the  receding  armies.  But  the 
town  was  anything  but  somnolent  during  his  stay. 
"He  was  a  bold,  outspoken,  independent  kind  of 
60 


JUDGE  TOURGEE  LEAVING  GREENSBORO 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

man,"  writes  a  Confederate  soldier  of  Greensboro  who 
knew  him  well  and  opposed  his  every  move.  "He 
did  not  toady  to  the  better  class  of  citizens  but  pursued 
the  even  tenor  of  his  way,  seemingly  regardless  of  public 
opinion.  He  had  a  good  mind  and  exercised  it.  He 
was  masterful  and  would  be  dominating.  He  was  not 
popular  with  the  other  carpet-baggers  nor  with  the 
prominent  native  scalawags — which  speaks  much  for 
his  honesty  and  independence."  By  the  votes  of  re- 
cently enfranchised  slaves  he  was  made  a  judge,  an 
able,  fearless,  and  personally  honest  one.  But  he  was 
always  an  alien,  an  unwelcome  intrusion,  a  resented 
imposition,  "a  frog  in  your  chamber,  a  fly  in  your 
ointment,  a  mote  in  your  eye,  a  triumph  to  your  enemy, 
an  apology  to  your  friends,  the  one  thing  not  needful, 
the  hail  in  harvest,  the  ounce  of  sour  in  a  pound  of 
sweet."  O.  Henry  found  a  silver  lining  in  his  presence 
but  Governor  Worth  succeeded  at  last  in  having  a  more 
acceptable  judge  appointed  in  his  place. 

"The  Fool's  Errand"  finds  few  readers  to-day  but 
when  it  appeared,  in  1879,  it  took  the  country  by 
storm.  "There  can  be  no  doubt,"  said  the  Boston 
Traveller  of  this  Greensboro  story,  "that  'A  Fool's 
Errand'  will  take  a  high  rank  in  fiction — a  rank  like 
that  of  *  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.'"  The  Chicago  Herald 
thought  that  the  author  must  be  Mrs.  Stowe.  "It 
may  be  well  to  inquire,"   said  the  Concord  Monitor, 

61 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

of  New  Hampshire,  "in  view  of  the  power  here  dis- 
played, whether  the  long-looked-for  native  American 
novehst  who  is  to  rival  Dickens,  and  equal  Thackeray, 
and  yet  imitate  neither,  has  not  been  found."  "The 
book  will  rank,"  said  the  Portland  Advertiser,  of  Maine, 
"among  the  famous  novels  which  represent  certain 
epochs  of  history  so  faitlifuUy  and  accurately  that, 
once  written,  they  must  be  read  by  everybody  who 
desires  to  be  well  informed." 

The  story  takes  place  in  Greensboro,  which  is  called 
"Verdenton";  Judge  Tourgee,  "the  fool,"  is  "Colonel 
Servosse";  and  most  of  the  other  characters  are  Greens- 
boro men  easily  recognized.  It  is  certainly  a  note- 
worthy fact  that  "John  Burleson,"  a  citizen  of  Greens- 
boro and  the  hero  in  "A  Fool's  Errand,"  has  recently 
reappeared  as  "Stephen  Hoyle,"  the  villain,  in  "The 
Traitor,"  the  novel  which  Mr.  Thomas  Dixon  has 
wrought  into  the  vast  and  stirring  historic  drama  called 
"The  Birth  of  a  Nation."  Neither  author  attempts 
an  accurate  appraisal  of  the  character  or  career  of 
"John  Burleson"  alias  "Stephen  Hoyle,"  both  inter- 
preting him  only  as  the  rock  on  which  the  Ku  Klux 
Klan  was  wrecked. 

Judge  Tourgee  had  lain  awake  many  a  night  in 
Greensboro  expecting  a  visit  from  "The  Invisible 
Empire,"  but  it  had  not  come.  In  place  of  it  there 
came  the  conviction,  which  gives  form  and  substance 
62 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

to  his  book,  that  Reconstruction  so-called  was  folly 
and  he  a  consummate  and  pluperfect  fool  to  have 
aided  and  abetted  it.  After  reading  many  special 
treatises  and  university  dissertations  on  the  kind  of 
Reconstruction  attempted  in  the  South  I  find  in  "The 
Fool's  Errand"  the  wisest  statement  of  the  whole 
question  yet  made.  Nearly  a  half  century  has  passed 
since  the  events  recorded,  but  in  rereading  "A  Fool's 
Errand"  one  feels  anew  the  utter  un-Americanism  of 
the  whole  scheme  known  as  Reconstruction  and  the 
Americanism  of  the  author's  conclusions.  He  presents 
the  Greensboro  or  Southern  side  as  follows; 

We  were  rebels  in  arms:  we  surrendered,  and  by  the  terms  of 
surrender  were  promised  immunity  so  long  as  we  obeyed  the  laws. 
This  meant  that  we  should  govern  ourselves  as  of  old.  Instead 
of  this,  they  put  military  officers  over  us;  they  imposed  disabilities 
on  our  best  and  bravest;  they  liberated  our  slaves,  and  gave  them 
power  over  us.  Men  born  at  the  North  came  among  us,  and 
were  given  place  and  power  by  the  votes  of  slaves  and  renegades. 
There  were  incompetent  officers.  The  revenues  of  the  State  were 
squandered.  We  were  taxed  to  educate  the  blacks.  Enormous 
debts  were  contracted.  We  did  not  do  these  acts  of  violence 
from  political  motives,  but  only  because  the  parties  had  made 
themselves  obnoxious. 

Of  the  Southern  (or  shall  we  call  it  the  American.?) 
resistance  to  Reconstruction,  the  author  says: 

It  was  a  magnificent  sentiment  that  underlay  it  all — an  unfal- 
tering determination,  an  invincible  defiance  to  all  that  had  the 

63 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

seeming  of  compulsion  or  tyranny.  One  cannot  but  regard  with 
pride  and  sympathy  the  indomitable  men,  who,  being  conquered 
in  war,  yet  resisted  every  effort  of  the  conqueror  to  change  their 
laws,  their  customs,  or  even  the  personnel  of  their  ruhng  class; 
and  this,  too,  not  only  with  unyielding  stubbornness,  but  with 
success.  One  cannot  but  admire  the  arrogant  boldness  with 
which  they  charged  the  nation  which  had  overpowered  them — 
even  in  the  teeth  of  her  legislators — with  perfidy,  malice,  and  a 
spirit  of  unworthy  and  contemptible  revenge. 

Of  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  more  particularly  he  writes : 

It  is  sometimes  said,  by  those  who  do  not  comprehend  its 
purpose,  to  have  been  a  base,  cowardly,  and  cruel  barbarism. 
"What!"  says  the  Northern  man — who  has  stood  aloof  from 
it  all,  and  with  Pharisaic  assumption,  or  comfortable  ignorance  of 
facts,  denounced  "Ku-Klux,"  "carpet-baggers,"  "scalawags," 
and  "niggers"  alike, — "was  it  a  brave  thing,  worthy  of  a  brave  and 
chivahic  people,  to  assail  poor,  weak,  defenceless  men  and  v/omen 
with  overwhelming  forces,  to  terrify,  maltreat,  and  murder.''  Is 
this  brave  and  commendable?" 

Ah,  my  friend!  you  quite  mistake.  If  that  were  all  that  was 
intended  and  done,  no,  it  was  not  brave  and  commendable.  But 
it  was  not  alone  the  poor  colored  man  whom  the  daring  band  of 
night-riders  struck,  as  the  falcon  strikes  the  sparrow;  that  indeed 
would  have  been  cowardly:  but  it  was  the  Nation  which  had 
given  the  victim  citizenship  and  power,  on  whom  their  blow  fell. 
It  was  no  brave  thing  in  itself  for  Old  John  Brown  to  seize  the 
arsenal  at  Harper's  Ferry;  considered  as  an  assault  on  the  almost 
solitary  watchman,  it  was  cowardly  in  the  extreme:  but,  when  we 
consider  what  power  stood  behind  that  powerless  squad,  we  are 
amazed  at  the  daring  of  the  Hero  of  Ossawattomie.  So  it  was 
with  this  magnificent  organization.  It  was  not  the  individual 
negro,  scalawag,  or  carpet-bagger,  against  whom  the  blow  was 
directed,  but  the  power — the  Government — the  idea  which  they 
represented.  Not  unfrequently,  the  individual  victim  was  one 
61. 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

toward  whom  the  individual  members  of  the  Klan  who  executed 
its  decree  upon  him  had  no  Httle  of  kindly  feeling  and  respect, 
but  whose  influence,  energy,  boldness,  or  official  position,  was 
such  as  to  demand  that  he  should  be  "visited."  In  most  of  its 
assaults,  tlie  Klan  was  not  instigated  by  cruelty,  nor  a  desire  for 
revenge;  but  these  were  simply  the  most  direct,  perhaps  the  only, 
means  to  secure  the  end  it  had  in  view.  The  brain,  the  wealth, 
the  chivalric  spirit  of  the  South,  wa^  restive  under  what  it  deemed 
degradation  and  oppression.  This  association  offered  a  ready 
and  effective  method  of  overturning  the  hated  organization,  and 
throwing  off  the  rule  which  had  been  imposed  upon  them.  From 
the  first,  therefore,  it  spread  like  wildfire.  It  is  said  that  the  first 
organization  was  instituted  in  May,  or  perhaps  as  late  as  the  1st 
of  June,  1868;  yet  by  August  of  that  year  it  was  firmly  established 
in  every  State  of  the  South. 

O.  Henrj^  was  seventeen  years  old  when  Judge 
Tourgee  left  Greensboro,  never  to  return.  Recon- 
struction was  a  thing  of  the  past  and  the  Ku  Klux,  of 
whom  there  were  about  eight  hundred  in  Guilford 
County,  had  become  but  a  memory.  There  was 
romance  and  mystery  in  it  all  to  the  younger  generation, 
and  O.  Henry  shows  the  traces  of  it  in  his  later  work. 
"I'm  half  Southerner  by  nature,"  says  Barnard  O'Keefe 
in  "Two  Renegades."  "I'm  willing  to  try  the  Ku 
Klux  in  place  of  the  khaki."  That  was  what  Guilford 
County  did  in  O.  Henry's  boyhood.  In  "The  Rose 
of  Dixie"  Beauregard  Fitzhugh  Banks  was  engaged 
as  advertising  manager  of  the  new  Southern  magazine 
because  his  grandfather  had  been  "the  Exalted  High 
Pillow-slip  of  the  Ku  Klux  Klan."     When  the  Spanish 

65 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

War  came,  says  0.  Henry  in  "The  Moment  of  Victory," 
"The  old  party  Hnes  drawn  by  Sherman's  march  and 
the  Ku  Klux  and  nine-cent  cotton  and  the  Jim  Crow 
street-car  ordinances  faded  away." 

Of  com*se  Judge  Tom-gee's  residence  was  to  the 
boys  of  the  town  a  sort  of  demon's  haunt.  We  never 
passed  it  without  shuddering.  Dr.^Ruf  us  W.  Weaver,  of 
Nashville,  Tennessee,  gives  his  impressions  as  follows:* 

The  first  money  which  I,  a  country  boy,  ever  made  was  acquired 
by  the  picking  and  the  selhng  of  cherries,  and  since  I  retailed 
them,  going  from  house  to  house,  I  grew  faraihar  with  all  the 
streets  of  this  little  town.  There  was  one  house,  standing  far 
back  from  the  street,  its  yard  thickly  shaded  by  elms  and  oaks, 
which  was  to  me  a  place  of  mystery,  for  here  there  lived  that 
one-eyed  scoundrel,  that  old  carpet-bagger.  Judge  Tourgee,  the 
Republican  boss  of  the  State,  who  had  sought,  so  we  are  told,  to 
introduce  social  equality  among  negroes  and  whites;  who  had 
wrecked  the  good  name  and  the  financial  integrity  of  our  fair 
State  by  his  unexampled  extravagance  when  he  was  in  control  of 
the  State  legislature,  and  who  had  brought  about  almost  a  reign 
of  terror,  so  that  he  was  justly  considered  by  all  good  people  to  be 
a  veritable  monster. 

But  to  O.  Henry,  Ku  Klux  and  Judge  Tourgee  were 
only  so  many  more  challenges  to  the  innate  romanticism 
of  his  natm-e.  His  most  intimate  boyhood  friend,  Mr. 
Thomas  H.  Tate,  writes  of  those  days: 

Of  course  Will  [O.  Henry]  and  I  played  Ku  Klux.  My  mother 
was  a  past  master  at  making  masks  out  of  newspapers  which  she 

*See  "A  Story  of  Dreams  and  Deeds:  The  Awakening  of  O.  Henry's  Town."  (Southern 
Woman's  Magazine,  September,  1915,  Nashville,  Tennessee.) 

66 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

folded  and  cut  out  with  her  scissors,  I  remember  how  the  negroes 
used  to  pretend  to  be  terribly  frightened  and  how  pleased  we  were 
with  our  efforts.  The  old  Presbyterian  High  School  [a  child  of 
David  Caldwell]  used  to  be  the  meeting  place  of  the  genuine  article 
and  was  always  held  in  awe  by  us  boys  for  a  long  time  on  that 
account.  You  will  remember  that  it  stood  vacant  and  gloomy  in 
the  grove  just  opposite  our  home  place  for  many  years.  As  to 
Judge  Tourgee,  we  looked  upon  him  as  some  sort  of  a  pirate, 
mysterious  and  blackened  by  a  thousand  crimes,  and  we  glanced 
at  him  covertly  when  he  happened  around.  He  was  a  sort  of 
an  ogre,  but  even  then  we  admired  him  for  his  courage  and  won- 
dered at  it,  coming  as  he  did  from  the  North.  Very  dark  stories 
were  whispered  of  his  doings  out  in  far-off  Warnersville,  the  negro 
settlement  out  by  the  Methodist  graveyard.  He  held  meetings 
out  there  that  we  v/ere  almost  prepared  to  say  were  a  species  of 
voodooism. 

You  will  remember  that  he  had  a  beautiful  country  place  out 
on  the  Guilford  College  Road.  There  was  a  greenhouse,  flowers, 
shrubbery,  and  an  immense  rustic  arbor  there  and  it  was  used 
for  dances  and  had  an  upper  and  lower  floor.  Miss  Salhe  Coleman 
was  visiting  in  Greensboro  and  either  expressed  a  desire  for 
magnolias  or  Will  conceived  that  she  would  like  to  have  some,  so 
we  started  about  midnight  on  the  six  miles'  "hike"  to  West 
Green  to  spoil  and  loot.  Strange  to  say,  the  memory  of  the  moon- 
lit night  is  with  me  now  even  after  all  these  years.  It  was  a  per- 
fect night.  The  moon  was  full  and  showering  down  her  mellow 
radiance  in  great  floods.  I  can  see  the  long  white  line  of  road 
stretching  out,  hear  the  whippoorwills  and  smell  the  good  night 
air  laden  with  its  species  and  fragrance  and  I  can  see  the 
long  row  of  magnolia  trees  out  in  the  wheat  field  and  orchard 
with  their  great  white  flowers  gleaming  out  from  the  dark  foli- 
age. I  can  also  feel  the  creepy  sensation  that  I  felt  when  we 
mounted  the  fence  and  started  across  the  open  field  for  the  trees 
and  the  relief  that  came  v,hen  we  crossed  that  fence  with  the 
loot.  We  carried  them  back  and  laid  them  on  Miss  Sallie's  door- 
step. 

67 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

The  incident  is  peculiarly  characteristic  There 
were  plenty  of  magnolias  nearer  O.  Henry's  home  than 
West  Green  and  they  could  have  been  had  in  broad 
daylight  for  the  asking.  What  his  nature  craved  was 
an  opportunity  to  play  the  knight,  to  steep  himself 
in  romance,  to  dare  the  forbidden,  to  imagine  himself 
for  six  glorious  miles  one  of  the  venturers  of  whom  he 
was  afterward  to  write:* 

The  Venturer  is  one  who  keeps  his  eye  on  the  hedgerows  and 
wayside  groves  and  meadows  while  he  travels  the  road  to  Fortune. 
That  is  the  difference  between  him  and  the  Adventurer.  Eating 
the  forbidden  fruit  was  the  best  record  ever  made  by  a  Venturer. 
Trying  to  prove  that  it  happened  is  the  highest  work  of  the  Ad- 
venturesome. To  be  either  is  disturbing  to  the  cosmogony  of 
creation. 

The  man  who  was  in  later  years  to  be  hailed  as  "the 
discoverer  of  the  romance  in  the  streets  of  New  York," 
who,  as  the  Atlantic  Monthly]  put  it,  "seems  to 
possess  the  happy  gift  of  picking  up  gold  pieces  from 
the  asphalt  pavement,"  was  a  pursuivant  of  romance 
all  his  life. 

Sometimes  the  sources  from  which  he  drew  his  ro- 
mantic inspiration  could  hardly  in  themselves  be  called 
romantic.     A  playmate  writes: 

When  Will  [O.  Henry]  was  about  eight  years  old,  he  and  I  were 
riding  around  my  mother's  garden  on  stick  horses,  when  we  found 
a  conical  mound  where  potatoes  or  turnips  had  been  "holed  up 

*"The  Venturers." 
t  For  July,  1907, 

68 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

for  winter  use.  His  fertile  imagination  at  once  converted  this 
into  a  great  castle  inhabited  by  a  cruel  giant  who  kept  imprisoned 
within  its  grim  walls  a  beautiful  maiden  whom  he  and  I,  after 
doing  vahant  battle  as  her  loyal  knights,  were  to  trmmphantly 
rescue  At  this  remote  period  I  cannot  of  course  recall  all  the 
details  of  this  wonderful  story  as  he  told  it,  but  I  feel  sure  that  if 
it  could  be  faithfully  reproduced,  it  would  make  tlirillingly  inter- 
esting reading  of  its  kind. 

But  in  these  early  days  playing  Indian  was  O. 
Henry's  favourite  pastime.  Indian  arrow-heads  were 
plentiful  around  Greensboro  and  O.  Henry,  it  will  be 
remembered,  treasured  above  all  others  one  tbat  he 
had  found  sticking  in  the  Revolutionary  log  that 
formed  a  part  of  his  home.  The  Indian  game  took 
many  forms  but  all  gave  scope  and  career  to  his  imagi- 
nation as  well  as  zest  and  vividness  to  his  early  reading. 
Mr.  Thomas  H.  Tate  describes  two  forms  of  the 
Indian  play  as  follows: 

My  father  kept  a  large  flock  of  turkeys  and  the  tail  feathers  of 
these  furnished  us  material  for  our  "war  bonnets"  when  we  played 
Indian,  much  to  the  detriment  of  the  turkeys'  appearance  and 
to  my  father's  displeasure.  We  played  this  game  more  than  any 
other.  Our  bows  were  of  our  own  make  as  were  the  arrows,  and 
were  quite  effective  as  the  Poland  Chinas,  Berkshires,  and  Chester 
Whites  could  testify  if  they  had  not  long  since  gone  the  way  of  all 
good  hogs— which  is  not  Jerusalem.  These  hogs  acted  in  turns 
the  part  of  giizzlies,  deer,  horses,  etc.,  and  often  in  the  excitement 
of  the  chase  an  arrow  would  be  shot  just  a  little  harder  than  we 
intended  and  we  would  thereupon  chase  the  poor  unfortunate  to 
exhaustion  to  get  the  arrow  out  of  its  mark  before  my  father 
returned      We  were  always  successful  is  my  recollection  and  I 

69 


0.  HENRY   BIOGRAPHY 

am  most  sure  that  it  does  not  fail  me  for  any  omission  would 
certainly  have  been  visited  by  such  a  forcible  reminder  that  it 
would  have  remained  fresh  and  green  in  my  memory  to  this  day 
and  beyond.  Another  feature  of  the  Indian  play,  or  rather  an- 
other setting  to  our  action,  was  on  a  muddy  bank  down  at  the 
creek.  We  would  take  our  toy  gun,  owned  in  common,  go  down 
to  the  soft,  slippery  bank — strip  and  paint  up  properly  and  wage 
warfare  on  each  other.  Dying  a  thousand  deaths  was  a  small 
item  to  us;  we  did  it  thoroughly  that  many  times  each  day. 


Dui'ing  these  years  O.  Henry  cared  little  for  indoor 
games  and  sports.  In  chess  he  could  hold  his  own  with 
the  veterans  of  the  town  before  he  had  reached  his 
teens  and  in  roller-skating  he  won  the  championship 
prize.  He  was  also  a  good  boxer  and  a  trained  fencer. 
But  his  favourite  recreation  was  to  roam  around  the 
fields  and  woods  with  a  congenial  companion.  A 
book  was  usually  taken  along  and  was  read  in  some 
shady  spot  or,  in  winter  time,  beneath  the  shelter  of 
pines  and  broomsedge  on  a  favourite  hillside  over- 
looking old  Caldwell's  Pond.  Even  when  he  went 
fishing  or  swimming  or  hunting  for  chinquapins  or  hickory 
nuts,  he  found  his  chief  exhilaration  in  the  breadth 
and  freedom  of  out  of  doors  rather  than  in  the  nominal 
object  of  the  jaunt.  An  outing  with  a  set  purpose 
was  never  to  his  liking.  His  pleasure  was  in  merely 
being  in  the  woods  or  on  the  bank  of  a  stream,  in  sur- 
rendering himself  to  the  mood  rather  than  to  the 
purpose  of  the  occasion,  and  in  interpreting  in  waggish 
70 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

ways  everything  said  or  done  or  seen.  He  was  always 
shy,  his  exuberant  humour  and  rare  gift  of  story  telHng 
seeming  to  take  flight  within  the  walls  of  a  house.  He 
preferred  the  front  gate  or,  as  a  halfway  station,  the 
porch.  Even  in  a  small  group  out  of  doors,  if  there 
was  a  stranger  or  one  uncongenial  companion,  O. 
Henry  would  not  be  heard  from.  But  the  next  day 
he  would  tell  you  what  happened  and  with  such  a 
wealth  of  original  comment  and  keenness  of  insight 
and  alchemy  of  exaggeration,  all  framed  in  a  droll  or 
dramatic  story,  that  you  would  think  you  had  missed 
the  time  of  your  life  in  not  being  present. 

"His  education  is  about  a  common  school  one," 
said  O.  Henry  of  himself  in  the  words  already  cited, 
"but  he  learns  afterward  from  reading  and  life."  His 
teacher  and  his  only  teacher  was  his  aunt.  Miss  Evelina 
Maria  Porter,  known  to  every  one  in  Greensboro  as 
Miss  Lina.  Hers  was  undoubtedly  the  strongest 
personal  influence  brought  to  bear  on  O.  Henry  during 
his  twenty  years  in  North  Carolina.  The  death  of  his 
mother  when  he  was  only  three  years  old  and  the  in- 
creasing absorption  of  his  father  in  futile  inventions 
resulted  in  Miss  Lina's  taking  the  place  of  both  parents, 
and  this  she  did  not  only  with  whole-souled  devotion 
but  with  rare  and  efficient  intelligence.  She  was  a 
handsome  woman  with  none  of  her  father's  happy-go- 
lucky  disposition  but  with  much  of  her  mother's  direc- 


71 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

tive  ability  and  with  a  profound  sense  of  responsibility 
for  the  welfare  of  every  boy  and  girl  that  entered  her 
school.  She  had  been  educated  at  Edgeworth  Female 
Seminary  and  in  the  late  'sixties  opened  a  small  school 
in  one  of  the  rooms  of  her  mother's  home.  Her  mother 
assisted  her  and  in  a  few  years,  the  school  having 
outgrown  its  accommodations,  a  small  building  was 
erected  on  the  Porter  premises.  Here  Miss  Lina  taught 
until  the  growth  of  the  public  graded  school  system, 
which  Greensboro  was  the  first  town  in  the  State  to 
adopt,  began  to  encroach  upon  her  domain  and  to 
render  her  work  less  remunerative  and  less  needful. 

When  she  closed  her  school  she  carried  with  her  the 
love  and  the  increasing  admiration  of  all  whom  she 
had  taught.  No  teacher  of  a  private  preparatory  school 
in  Greensboro  ever  taught  as  many  pupils  as  Miss 
Lina  or  was  followed  by  a  heartier  plaudit  of  "Well 
done."  She  did  not,  of  course,  spare  the  rod.  It  was 
not  the  fashion  in  those  days  to  spare  it.  At  a  Fridaj^ 
afternoon  speech-making  one  of  her  pupils  started 
gayly  off  with 

One  hungry  day  a  summer  ape. 

The  emendation  must  have  appealed  to  the  youthful 
O.  Henry.  Of  that,  however,  we  are  not  informed,  but 
we  are  informed  that  the  perpetrator  had  hardly 
reached  "ape"  before  he  had  a  lesson  impressed  upon 

72 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 
him  as  to  the  enormity  of  adjectival  transposition  that 
he  will  carry  with  him  Into  the  next  world. 

But  there  was  no  cruelty  In  Miss  LIna's  disposition. 
She  tempered  justice  If  not  with  mercy  at  least  with 
rigid  Impartiality  and  with  hearty  laughter.  I  have 
never  known  a  pupil  of  her  school,  whether  doctor, 
teacher,  preacher,  merchant,  lawyer,  or  judge,  who 
did  not  say  that  every  application  of  the  rod,  so  far 
as  he  was  concerned,  was  amply  and  urgently  deserved. 
To  have  been  soundly  whipped  by  Miss  LIna  Is  still 
regarded  In  Greensboro  as  a  sort  of  spiritual  bond  of 
union,  linking  together  the  older  citizens  of  the  town 
in  a  community  of  cutaneous  experience  for  which 
they  would  not  exchange  a  college  diploma.  The 
little  schoolroom  was  removed  many  years  ago  but 
it  still  lives  In  the  grateful  memory  of  all  who  attended 
It  and  has  attained  a  new  immortality  in  the  fame  of 
its  most  Illustrious  pupil. 

O.  Henry  attended  no  other  school,  and  he  attended 
this  only  to  the  age  of  fifteen.  He  was  always  a 
favourite  with  Miss  LIna  and  with  the  other  pupils. 
The  gentleness  of  his  disposition  and  his  genius  for 
original  kinds  of  play  won  his  schoolmates  while  his 
aunt  held  up  his  interest  in  his  books,  his  good  deport- 
ment, and  his  skill  in  drawing  as  worthy  of  all  emula- 
tion. Miss  LIna  taught  drawing,  but  O.  Henry's 
sketches  were  almost  from  the  start  so  far  superior 

73 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

to  hers  that  they  were  generally  selected  as  the  models. 
Some  of  his  best  free-hand  sketches  Miss  Lina  never 
saw,  though  she  deserves  the  credit  of  having  inspired 
them.  She  had  a  way  of  sending  the  arithmetic  class 
to  the  blackboard  while  she  paced  the  floor  with  the 
bundle  of  switches.  0.  Henry  would  work  his  "sum" 
with  his  right  hand  and  sketch  Miss  Lina  with  his 
left  at  the  same  time.  The  likeness  was  perfect,  not 
a  feature  or  switch  being  omitted.  The  whole  thing 
had  to  be  done  as  she  walked  from  one  side  of  the  little 
room  to  the  other  with  her  back  to  the  blackboard. 
To  insure  safety  through  instantaneous  erasure  the 
fingers  of  the  left  hand  held  not  only  the  rapidly  moving 
crayon  but  also  the  erasing  rag.  O.  Henry's  ear, 
long  practised  told  him  accurately  how  near  Miss 
Lina  was  to  the  end  of  her  promenade,  and  just  before 
her  last  step  was  taken  and  the  return  trip  begun  the 
rag  would  descend  and  she  would  behold  only  a  sum  so 
neatly  worked  that  it  would  become  the  subject  of 
another  address  on  good  work  and  model  workers. 

But  we  are  more  concerned  here  with  Miss  Lina's 
method  of  teaching  literature.  She  had  a  method,  and 
O.  Henry's  lifelong  love  of  good  books  was  in  part  the 
fruitage  of  her  method.  She  did  not  teach  the  history 
of  literature,  but  she  laboured  in  season  and  out  of 
season  to  have  her  pupils  assimilate  the  spirit  of  litera- 
ture. Her  reading  in  the  best  English  literature  was, 
74 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

if  not  wide,  at  least  intimate  and  appreciative.  She 
loved  books  as  she  loved  flowers,  because  her  nature 
demanded  them.  Fiction  and  poetry  were  her  means 
of  widening  and  enriching  her  own  inner  life,  not  of 
learning  facts  about  the  world  without.  Scott  and 
Dickens  were  her  favourite  novelists  and  Father  Ryan 
her  favourite  poet.  She  did  not  measure  literature  by 
life  but  life  by  literature.  So  did  O.  Henry  at  that  time, 
but  he  was  later  to  transpose  his  standards,  putting  life 
first.  I  have  often  thought  that  Miss  Lina  must  have 
been  in  O.  Henry's  mind  when  he  wrote  those  suggestive 
words  about  Azalea  Adair  in  "A  Municipal  Report'*: 

She  was  a  product  of  the  old  South,  gently  nurtured  in  the 
sheltered  life.  Her  learning  was  not  broad,  but  was  deep  and  of 
splendid  originality  in  its  somewhat  narrow  scope.  She  had 
been  educated  at  home,  and  her  knowledge  of  the  world  was 
derived  from  inference  and  by  inspiration.  Of  such  is  the  precious, 
small  group  of  essayists  made.  While  she  talked  to  me  I  kept 
brushing  my  fingers,  trying,  unconsciously,  to  rid  them  guiltily 
of  the  absent  dust  from  the  half-calf  backs  of  Lamb,  Chaucer, 
HazUtt,  Marcus  Aurelius,  Montaigne,  and  Hood.  She  was  ex- 
quisite; she  was  a  valuable  discovery.  Nearly  everybody  nowa- 
days knows  too  much — oh,  so  much  too  much — of  real  life. 

Miss  Lina  used  regularly  to  gather  her  boys  about 
her  at  recess  and  read  to  them  from  some  standard 
author.  When  she  saw  that  she  had  caught  their 
interest  she  would  announce  a  Friday  night  meeting 
in  the  schoolroom  at  which  they  would  pop  corn  and 
roast  chestnuts  and  she  would  continue  the  readings. 

75 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

"I  did  more  reading,"  says  0.  Henry,  "between  my 
thirteenth  and  nineteenth  years  than  I  have  done 
in  all  the  years  since,  and  my  taste  at  that  time  was 
much  better  than  it  is  now,  for  I  used  to  read  nothing 
but  the  classics.  Burton's  'Anatomy  of  Melancholy' 
and  Lane's  translation  of  'The  Arabian  Nights'  were 
my  favourites."  During  his  busy  years  in  New  York 
he  often  remarked  to  Mrs.  Porter:  "I  never  have  time 
to  read  now.  I  did  all  my  reading  before  I  was  twenty." 
This  did  not,  of  course,  refer  to  newspapers,  which  he 
devoured  three  or  four  times  a  day. 

But  Miss  Lina  believed  that  the  best  way  to  learn 
or  to  appreciate  the  art  of  narration  was  to  try  your 
hand  at  it  yourself.  You  might  never  become  a  great 
writer,  but  you  would  at  least  have  a  first-hand  ac- 
quaintance with  the  discipline  that  well-knit  narrative 
involves.  In  the  intervals,  therefore,  between  chest- 
nut roastings  and  classic  readings  an  original  story 
would  be  started,  every  one  present  having  to  make  an 
impromptu  contribution  when  called  on.  Each  con- 
tribution, being  expected  to  grow  naturally  out  of 
the  incidents  that  preceded  it,  demanded,  of  course,  the 
closest  attention  to  all  that  had  hitherto  been  said. 
The  most  difficult  role  in  this  narrative  program  fell, 
of  course,  to  the  pupil  who  tried  to  halt  the  windings 
of  the  story  by  an  interesting  and  adequate  conclusion. 
To  do  this  required  not  only  a  memory  that  retained 
7G 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

vividly  the  incidents  and  characters  ah-eady  projected 
into  the  story,  but  a  constructive  imagination  that 
could  interpret  and  fuse  them.  Need  I  say  that  the 
creator  of  "The  Four  Milhon"  found  his  keenest  de- 
Hght  in  this  exercise  or  that  his  contributions  were 
those  most  eagerly  awaited  by  teacher  and  pupil? 

In  the  long  summer  evenings  after  school  Miss 
Lina's  boys  would  gather  on  the  old  Edgeworth  grounds 
for  a  kind  of  recreation  which  the  contracted  Porter 
premises  did  not  permit.  In  an  English  magazine  O. 
Henry  had  read  two  serial  stories  called  "Jack  Hark- 
away"  and  "Dick  Lightheart."  These  gave  him  the 
suggestion  for  two  clubs  or  societies  into  which  the 
more  congenial  of  Miss  Lina's  pupils  were  forthwith 
divided.  One  was  the  Brickbats,  the  other  the  Union 
Jacks.  The  Union  Jacks,  to  which  0.  Henry  belonged, 
had  selected  for  their  armory  one  of  the  few  minor 
buildings  on  the  Edgeworth  campus  which  had  been 
spared  by  the  fire.  Here  they  had  stored  a  rich  col- 
lection of  wooden  battleaxes,  shields,  spears,  helmets, 
cavalry  sabres,  and  all  other  things  Jane  Porterish, 
and  here  they  held  nightly  conclave.  The  planning 
of  raids  which  never  took  place,  the  discussion  of  the 
relative  values  of  medieval  weapons  of  which  they  had 
read,  the  facile  citation  of  well-known  non-existent 
authorities  on  attack  and  counter-attack,  the  bestowal 
of  knightly  titles  on  themselves  and  of  less  knightly 

77 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

on  their  imagined  foes,  and  the  generous  use  of  "Hist!" 
"Zounds!"  "Hark  ye!"  and  "By  my  haUdome!" 
make  the  Union  Jacks  and  the  Edgeworth  grounds  not 
the  least  of  the  formative  influences  that  wrought 
upon  0.  Henry  during  his  more  malleable  years. 

"On  Friday  nights,"*  says  one  of  the  Union  Jacks, 
"it  was  their  custom  to  sally  forth  armed  and  equipped 
from  their  castle  in  search  of  adventure,  like  knights 
of  old,  carefully  avoiding  the  dark  nooks  where  there 
were  gloomy  shadows.  Porter  was  the  leading  spirit 
in  the  daring  enterprises  and  many  were  the  hair- 
raising  adventures  these  ten-year-old  heroes  encoun- 
tered. The  shields  and  battleaxes  were  often  thrown 
hastily  aside  when  safety  lay  in  flight.  Ghosts  were 
not  uncommon  in  those  days,  or  rather  nights,  and  only 
good,  sturdy  legs  could  cope  with  the  supernatural." 

Two  other  incidents  of  O.  Henry's  brief  school  days 

will  illustrate  the  artistic  use  that  he  so  often  makes 

in  his  stories  of  scraps  of  verse  stored  in  the  memory  as 

well  as  the  longing  that  he  had  to  play  the  venturer 

beyond  the  confines  of  his  native  town  and  State.  By 

way  of  introduction  the  reader  will  recall  the  dramatic 

manner  in  which  O.  Henry  uses  in  "The  Caballero's 

Way"  these  lines: 

Don't  you  monkey  with  my  Lulu  girl 
Or  I'll  tell  you  what  I'll  do 

*See  "Concerning  O.  Henry"  (in  the  Concept,  Converse  College,  Spartanburg,  S.  C,  March, 
1911). 

78 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

Only  these  two  lines  are  given  in  the  story,  once  by  way 
of  prophecy  and  at  the  end  by  way  of  fulfilment;  but 
the  character  of  the  singer  and  the  way  in  which  the 
lines  are  sung  enable  the  reader  who  is  unfamiliar  with 
the  remaining  two  lines  to  guess  their  import.  Mr. 
J.  D.  Smith,  of  Mount  Airy,  North  Carolina,  writes: 

The  first  recollection  that  I  can  recall  of  William  Porter  was  when 
I  was  going  to  school  to  Miss  Lina  Porter.  I  went  to  jump  out 
of  the  window  and  in  doing  so  dislocated  my  ankle.  Not  being 
able  to  walk  Will  and  his  brother  Shirley  carried  me  into  the  house, 
and  sent  for  old  Doctor  Porter.  He  had  about  quit  practising, 
but  the  ankle  had  to  be  set  at  once,  so  Shirley  held  me  on  the  floor 
while  Will  seized  my  leg  and  the  old  doctor  started  to  twist  my 
ankle  oflf,  it  seemed  to  me.  I  began  to  cry  out,  and  then  Will 
began  to  sing,  and  you  know  he  could  not  sing,  but  this  was 
his  song: 

If  you  don't  stop  fooling  with  my  Lula 

I  tell  you  what  I'll  do; 
I'll  feel  around  your  heart  with  a  razor 
And  I'll  cut  your  liver  out  too. 

The  next  adventure  that  I  can  recall  was:  There  was  a  boy  who 
lived  opposite  the  school  by  the  name  of  Robertson,  whose  father 
was  a  dentist.  He  ran  away  and  went  on  a  whaling  vessel,  but 
finally  came  back,  and  we  would  meet  around  and  hear  him  tell 
about  the  sea,  and  how  much  money  he  made  catching  whales. 
Will  and  Tom  Tate  and  I  would  meet  and  caucus  whether  we 
would  go  and  catch  whales  or  fight  the  Indians.  Tom  was  for 
fighting  the  Indians,  and  Will  and  I  decided  that  we  would  make 
our  fortunes  catchmg  whales,  so  we  started  for  the  sea.  Our 
money  gave  out  at  Raleigh  and,  after  spending  all  we  had  for 
something  to  eat,  we  decided  to  go  home  if  we  could  get  there. 
We  went  to  the  depot  and,  as  luck  would  have  it,  we  saw  a  freight 

79 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

conductor  that  we  knew  in  Greensboro,  and  asked  him  if  he  would 
let  us  "brake"  for  our  fare  home.  He  told  us  to  crawl  up  on  the 
box  cars,  and  that  two  blows  meant  put  on  brakes,  and  one  to 
take  them  off,  and  for  us  to  mind  or  he  would  put  us  off.  That  is 
the  first  and  last  time  I  have  ever  been  on  top  of  a  box  car  running. 
After  we  had  gotten  up  good  speed  I  saw  the  engine  disappear 
around  a  curve,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  box  car  that  Will 
and  I  were  on  was  going  direct  to  the  woods.  Then  we  both  gave 
up  as  lost,  and  lay  right  down  on  the  running  board,  and  Will 
began  to  repeat  what  Miss  Lina  Porter  had  taught  him,  "Now  I 
lay  me  down  to  sleep,"  etc.  I  had  my  eyes  closed,  expecting  the 
car  to  hit  the  woods  every  minute.  Finally,  when  nothing  hap- 
pened, it  seemed  that  we  both  raised  up  about  the  same  time,  and 
just  looked  at  each  other.     Then  Will  began  his  song. 

If  you  don't  stop  fooling  with  my  Lula, 

but  in  rather  a  sheepish  manner. 

But  when  O.  Henry's  boyhood  friends  recall  him  it 
is  not  usually  as  a  pupil  in  Miss  Lina's  s<?hool;  nor  is  it 
as  the  writer  in  the  great  city.  It  is  as  the  clerk  in  his 
uncle  Clark  Porter's  drug  store  on  Elm  Street,  opposite 
the  old  Benbow  Hotel.  Here  he  was  known  and 
loved  by  old  and  young,  black  and  white,  rich  and  poor. 
He  was  the  wag  of  the  town,  but  so  quiet,  so  unobtru- 
sive, so  apparently  preoccupied  that  it  was  his  pencil 
rather  than  his  tongue  that  spread  his  local  fame. 
His  youthful  devotion  to  drawing  was  stimulated  in 
large  part  by  the  pictures  painted  by  his  mother. 
Many  of  these  hung  in  the  Porter  home.  Some  were 
portraits  and  some  landscapes.  They  were  part  of  the 
atmosphere  in  which  O.  Henry  was  reared.  One  of 
80 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

his  own  earliest  sketches  was  made  when  Edgeworth 
was  burned.  O.  Henry  was  then  only  ten  years  old 
but  the  picture  that  he  drew  of  a  playmate  rescuing 
an  empty  churn  from  the  basement  of  the  burning 
building,  with  the  milk  spilled  all  over  him,  Is  remem- 
bered for  Its  ludicrous  conception  and  for  Its  striking 
fidelity  to  the  boy  and  to  the  surroundings. 

His  five  years  in  his  uncle's  drug  store  meant  much 
to  him  as  a  cartoonist.  His  feeling  for  the  ludicrous, 
for  the  odd,  for  the  distinctive.  In  speech,  tone,  appear- 
ance, conduct,  or  character  responded  Instantly  to  the 
appeal  made  by  the  drug  store  constituency.  Not  that 
he  was  not  witty;  he  was.  But  his  best  things  were 
said  with  the  pencil.  There  was  not  a  man  or  woman 
in  the  town  whom  he  could  not  reproduce  recognizably 
with  a  few  strokes  of  a  lead  pencil.  Thus  It  was  a 
common  occurrence,  when  Clark  Porter  returned  to 
the  store  from  lunch,  for  a  conversation  like  this  to 
take  place:  O.  Henry  would  say:  "Uncle  Clark,  a 
man  called  to  see  you  a  little  while  ago  to  pay  a  bill." 
It  should  be  premised  that  It  was  not  good  form  in  those 
days  to  ask  a  man  to  stand  and  deliver  either  his  name  or 
the  amount  due.  "Who  was  it.'^"  his  uncle  would  ask. 
*'I  never  saw  him  before,  but  he  looks  like  this,"  and 
the  pencil  would  zigzag  up  and  down  a  piece  of  wrapping 
paper.  "  Oh,  that's  Bill  Jenkins  out  here  at  Reedy  Fork. 
He  owes  me  $7.25." 

81 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

Several  years  before  he  left  Greensboro  the  fame 
of  his  cartoons  had  spread  to  other  towns,  and  he 
was  urged  by  Colonel  Robert  Bingham,  a  relative  by 
marriage  and  Superintendent  of  the  famous  Bingham 
School,  then  at  Mebane,  North  Carolina,  to  come  at 
once  to  Bingham's  where  an  education  free  of  charge 
would  be  given  him.  "My  only  direct  connection  with 
William  Sydney  as  a  boy,"  writes  Colonel  Bingham, 
"was  to  offer  him  his  tuition  and  board  in  order  to 
get  the  use  of  his  talent  as  a  cartoonist  for  the  amuse- 
ment of  our  boys.  He  was  an  artist  with  chalk  on  a 
blackboard.  But  he  could  not  accept  my  offer  for 
lack  of  means  to  provide  for  his  uniform  and  books." 
This  must  have  been  a  bitter  disappointment  though 
O.  Henry  was  never  heard  to  allude  to  it. 

His  pencil  sketches  sometimes  gave  offence,  es- 
pecially when  some  admirer  would  hang  them  in  the 
store  window,  but  rarely.  He  was  absolutely  without 
malice.  There  was  about  him  also  a  gentleness  of 
manner,  a  delicacy  of  feeling,  a  refinement  in  speech 
and  demeanour  that  was  as  much  a  part  of  him  as  his 
humour.  I  have  received  no  reminiscences  of  him  that 
do  not  make  mention  of  his  purity  of  speech  and 
thought.  Yet  he  was  never  sissy.  He  could  be 
genuinely  funny  so  easily  himself  without  striking 
beneath  the  belt  that  a  resort  to  underhand  tactics 
seemed  crude  and  awkward  to  him.  It  betrayed 
82 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

poverty  of  resources.  In  the  presence  of  such  methods 
he  seemed  to  me  uneasy  and  bored  rather  than  indignant 
or  shocked.  No  one  at  least  who  knew  him  in  the  old 
days  will  wonder  at  the  surprise  with  which  in  later 
years  he  resented  the  constant  comparison  of  his  work 
with  that  of  De  Maupassant,  though  toward  the  last 
he  kept  a  copy  of  De  Maupassant  always  at  hand. 
No  two  writers  ever  lived  more  diametrically  opposed 
than  O.  Henry  and  De  Maupassant  except  in  technique. 
*'I  have  been  called,"  he  said,  "the  American  De 
Maupassant.  Well,  I  never  wrote  a  filthy  word  in 
my  life,  and  I  don't  like  to  be  compared  to  a  filthy 
writer."  Like  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  with  whom  he  had 
little  else  in  common,  O.  Henry  was  honoured  during 
his  whole  life  with  the  understanding  friendship  of  a 
few  noble-spirited  women  who  in  the  early  days,  as  in 
the  later,  helped,  I  think,  to  keep  his  compass  true. 

After  Miss  Lina's  school  the  drug  store  was  to  O. 
Henry  a  sort  of  advanced  course  in  human  nature  and 
in  the  cartoonist's  art.  George  Eliot  tells  in  "Romola" 
of  the  part  played  in  medieval  Florence  by  the  barber 
shop.  A  somewhat  analogous  part  was  played  in  Greens- 
boro forty  years  ago  by  Clark  Porter's  drug  store.  It 
was  the  rendezvous  of  all  classes,  though  the  rear  room 
was  reserved  for  the  more  elect.  The  two  rooms  con- 
stituted in  fact  the  social,  political,  and  anecdotal 
clearing  house   of  the   town.     The  patronage   of  the 

83 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

grocery  stores  and  drj^goods  stores  was  controlled 
in  part  bj^  denominational  lines,  but  everybody  pat- 
ronized the  drug  store.  It  was  also  a  sort  of  physical 
confessional.  The  man  who  would  expend  only  a  few 
words  in  purchasing  a  ham  or  a  hat  would  talk  half  an 
hour  of  his  aches  and  ills  or  those  of  his  family  before 
buying  twenty-five  cents'  worth  of  pills  or  a  ten-cent 
bottle  of  liniment.  When  the  ham  or  the  hat  was 
paid  for  and  taken  away  there  was  usually  an  end  of 
it.  Not  so  with  the  pills  or  the  liniment.  The  patient 
usually  came  back  to  continue  his  personal  or  family 
history  and  to  add  a  sketch  of  the  character  and  con- 
duct of  the  pills  or  liniment.  All  this  was  grist  to 
O.  Henry's  mill. 

No  one,  I  thinly,  without  a  training  similar  to 
O.  Henry's,  would  be  likely  to  write  such  a  story  as 
"Makes  the  Whole  World  Kin."  It  is  not  so  much  the 
knowledge  of  drugs  displayed  as  the  conversational 
atmosphere  of  the  drug  store  in  a  small  Southern  town 
that  gives  the  local  flavour.  A  burglar,  you  remember, 
has  entered  a  house  at  night.  "Hold  up  both  your 
hands,"  he  said.  "Can't  raise  the  other  one,"  was 
the  reply.  "What's  the  matter  with  it?"  "Rheu- 
matism in  the  shoulder."  "Inflammatory.'^"  asked 
the  burglar.  "Was.  The  inflammation  has  gone 
down."  " 'Scuse  me,"  said  the  burglar,  "but  it  just 
socked  me  one,  too."  "How  long  have  you  had  it.^^" 
84 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

inquired  the  citizen.  "  Four  years."  "  Ever  try  rattle- 
snake oiL^"  asked  the  citizen.  "Gallons.  If  all  the 
snakes  I've  used  the  oil  of  was  strung  out  in  a  row 
they'd  reach  eight  times  as  far  as  Saturn,  and  the 
rattles  could  be  heard  at  Valparaiso,  Indiana,  and 
back."  In  the  end  the  burglar  helps  the  citizen  to  dress 
and  they  go  out  together,  the  burglar  standing  treat. 

The  drawings  that  O.  Henry  used  to  make  of  the 
characters  that  frequented  the  drug  store  were  not 
caricatures.  There  was  usually,  it  is  true,  an  over- 
emphasis put  upon  some  one  trait,  but  this  trait  was 
the  central  trait,  the  over-emphasis  serving  only  to 
interpret  and  reveal  the  character  as  a  whole.  Ex- 
amining these  sketches  anew,  when  the  characters 
themselves  are  thirty  odd  years  older  than  they  were 
then,  one  is  struck  with  the  resemblance  still  existing. 
In  fact,  O.  Henry's  sketches  reproduce  the  characters 
as  they  are  to-day  more  faithfully  than  do  the  photo- 
graphs taken  at  the  same  time.  The  photographs 
have  been  outgrown,  but  not  the  sketches;  for  the 
sketches  caught  the  central  and  permanent,  while 
the  photographs  made  no  distinction.  In  O.  Henry's 
story  called  "A  Madison  Square  Arabian  Night,"  an 
artist,  picked  at  random  from  the  "free-bed  line,"  is 
made  to  say: 

Wlienever  I  finished  a  picture  people  would  come  to  see  it, 
and  whisper  and  look  queerly  at  one  another.     I  soon  found  out 

85 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

what  the  trouble  was.  I  had  a  knack  of  bringing  out  in  the  face 
of  a  portrait  the  hidden  character  of  the  original.  I  don't  know 
how  I  did  it — I  painted  what  I  saw. 

But  0.  Henry's  distinctive  skill,  the  skill  of  the  story 
teller  that  was  to  be,  is  seen  to  better  advantage  in 
his  pictures  of  groups  than  in  his  pictures  of  individuals. 
Into  the  group  pictures,  which  he  soon  came  to  prefer 
to  any  others,  he  put  more  of  himself  and  more  of  the 
life  of  the  community.  They  gave  room  for  a  sort  of 
collective  interpretation  which  seems  to  me  very  closely 
related  to  the  plots  of  his  short  stories.  There  is  the 
same  selection  of  a  central  theme,  the  same  saturation 
with  a  controlling  idea,  the  same  careful  choice  of  con- 
tributory details,  the  same  rejection  of  non-essentials, 
and  the  same  ability  to  fuse  both  theme  and  details 
into  a  single  totality  of  effect.  "He  could  pack  more 
of  the  social  history  of  this  city  into  a  small  picture," 
said  a  citizen  of  Austin,  Texas,  "than  I  thought  possible. 
Those  of  us  who  were  on  the  inside  could  read  the  story 
as  if  printed.  Let  me  show  you,"  and  he  entered  into 
an  affectionate  rhapsody  over  a  little  pen  and  ink  sketch 
which  he  still  carried  in  his  inside  coat  pocket. 

An  illustration  is  found  in  a  sketch  of  the  interior  of 
Clark  Porter's  drug  store.  The  date  is  1879.  Every 
character  is  drawn  to  the  life,  but  what  gives  unity 
to  the  whole  is  the  grouping  and  the  implied  comment, 
rather  than  criticism,  that  the  grouping  suggests. 
86 


f^^' 


0-, 


f^  _..^I 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

The  picture  might  well  be  called,  to  borrow  one  of  O. 
Henry's  story  names,  "The  Hypothesis  of  Failure." 
Indeed  Clark  Porter's  expression,  as  he  gazes  over  the 
counter,  signifies  as  much.  But  the  failure  is  due  to 
good-natured  foibles  rather  than  to  faults.  The  cen- 
tral figure  is  the  speaker.  He  was  a  sign  painter  in 
Greensboro,  a  dark,  Italianate-looking  man,  whose 
shop  was  immediately  behind  the  drug  store.  He  was 
one  of  the  first  to  recognize  O.  Henry's  genius  and 
treasured  with  mingled  affection  and  admiration  every 
drawing  of  the  master's  that  he  could  find.  He  did 
not  rightfully  belong,  however,  to  the  inner  circle  of 
the  drug  store  habitues.  If  he  had,  he  would  never 
have  said  "I'll  pay  you  for  it."  He  is  here  shown  on 
his  way  to  the  rear  room.  His  ostensible  quest  is  ice, 
but  the  protrusions  from  the  pitcher  indicate  that 
another  ingredient  of  "The  Lost  Blend"  is  a  more 
urgent  necessity.  His  plaintive  query  about  cigars 
finds  its  answer  in  the  abundant  remains,  mute  em- 
blems of  hospitality  abused,  that  already  bestrew  the 
floor.  On  the  right  is  the  Superintendent  of  the 
Presbyterian  Sunday  School.  He  was  also  a  deacon 
and  kept  a  curiosity  shop  of  a  store.  His  specialties 
were  rabbit  skins  and  Mason  and  Hamlin  organs. 
But  he  made  his  most  lasting  impression  on  O.  Llenry 
as  a  dispenser  of  kerosene  oil. 

It  happened  in  this  way:  the  Pastor  of  the  Presby- 

87 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

terian  Church  had  always  carried  his  empty  oil  can, 
supposed  to  hold  a  gallon,  to  be  replenished  at  the 
Superintendent's  font.  But  one  day  the  Superin- 
tendent's emporium  was  closed  and  the  pastoral  can 
journeyed  on  to  the  hardware  store  of  another  deacon. 
"Why,"  said  the  latter,  after  careful  measurement, 
"this  can  doesn't  hold  but  three  quarts."  "That's 
strange,"  said  the  minister  pensively;  "Brother  M. 
has  been  squeezing  four  quarts  into  it  for  twenty 
years."  The  reply  went  the  rounds  of  the  town  at 
once  and  O.  Henry,  who  no  more  doubted  Brother  M's 
good  intentions  than  he  did  his  uncle's  or  the  sign 
painter's,  put  him  promptly  into  the  picture  as  en- 
titled to  all  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  quartette. 
The  venerable  figure  on  the  left  is  Dr.  James  K.  Hall, 
the  Nestor  of  the  drug  store  coterie  and  the  leading 
physician  of  Greensboro.  He  was  a  sort  of  second 
father  to  O.  Henry,  whom  he  loved  as  a  son,  though  O. 
Henry  drew  about  as  many  cartoons  of  him  as  he  filled 
prescriptions  made  by  him.  Three  years  later  Doctor 
Hall  was  to  take  O.  Henry  with  him  to  Texas  where 
the  second  chapter  in  his  life  was  to  begin.  Doctor 
Hall  was  the  tallest  man  in  Greensboro  and  the  stoop, 
the  pose  of  the  head,  the  very  bend  of  the  knee  in  the 
picture  are  perfect.  He  is  sketched  at  the  moment 
when,  having  contributed  his  full  quota  of  cigar  stumps, 
he  is  WTiting  a  prescription  for  Clark  or  O.  Henry  to  fill. 
88 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

O.  Henry's  reading  at  this  time  as  well  as  his  draw- 
ing had  begun  to  widen  and  deepen.  At  first  he  had 
been  gripped  by  the  dime  novel.  He  was  four  years 
old  when  George  Munro  began  to  issue  his  "Ten  Cent 
Novels."  These  became  to  0.  Henry  what  Skelt's 
melodramas  were  to  Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  "In 
this  roll-call  of  stirring  names,"  says  Stevenson,*  "you 
read  the  evidences  of  a  happy  childhood."  The  roll- 
call  included  "The  Red  Rover,"  "The  Wood  Demon," 
"The  Miller  and  His  Men,"  "Three-fingered  Jack," 
and  "The  Terror  of  Jamaica."  "We  had  the  biggest 
collection  of  dime  novels,"  says  Mr.  Thomas  H.  Tate, 
O.  Henry's  schoolmate  and  co-reader,  "I  have  ever 
seen  outside  of  a  cigar  stand,  and  I  don't  think  we  could 
have  been  over  seven  or  eight  years  old.  Will  soon 
imbibed  the  style  and  could  tell  as  good  a  thriller  as 
the  author  of  'Red-Eyed  Rube. '  I  can  see  the  circle  of 
wide-eyed  little  fellows  lying  around  in  the  shade  on 
the  grass  as  he  opened  up  with : '  If  you  had  been  a  close 
observer  you  might  have  descried  a  solitary  horseman 
slowly  wending  his  way'  or  'The  sun  was  sinking  be- 
hind the  western  hills,'  and  so  on." 

Stevenson's  early  favourites  were  plays  while  O. 
Henry's  were  stories,  but  by  acting  on  the  banks  of 
Caldwell's  Pond  the  more  romantic  episodes  in  the 
Munro  tales   O.   Henry  turned   the  dime   novel   into 


*In  "Penny  Plain  and  Twopence  Colored." 

89 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

a  sort  of  home-made  melodrama.  If  we  may  make 
the  distinction  between  the  acquisitive  reader  and  the 
assimilative  reader  we  should  say  that  O.  Henry  was 
first  and  last  assimilative.  For  facts  as  facts  in  books 
he  cared  but  little,  but  for  the  way  they  were  put 
together,  for  the  way  they  were  fused  and  used,  for 
the  after-tones  and  after-glow  that  the  writer's  per- 
sonality imparted,  he  cared  everything.  We  have 
often  wondered  what  effect  a  college  education  would 
have  had  upon  him.  The  effect,  we  think,  that  it 
would  have  had  upon  Bret  Harte  or  Joel  Chandler  Harris 
or  Mark  Twain,  that  of  making  each  more  acquisitive 
and  less  assimilative. 

After  the  dime  novel  came  the  supernatural  story, 
when  "the  clutch  of  a  clammy  hand"  replaced  the 
solitary  horseman  and  the  dutiful  sun.  Before  leaving 
Greensboro,  however,  O.  Henry  had  passed  to  the 
stage  represented  in  his  own  statement:  "I  used  to 
read  nothing  but  the  classics."  But  to  "The  Arabian 
Nights,"  a  lifelong  inspiration,  and  Burton's  "Anatomy 
of  Melancholy,"  must  be  added  the  novels  of  Scott, 
Dickens,  Thackeray,  Charles  Reade,  Bulwer  Lytton, 
Wilkle  Collins,  Auerbach,  Victor  Hugo,  and  Alexander 
Dumas.  His  love  of  Scott  came  via  an  interest  which 
he  soon  outgrew  in  "Thaddeus  of  Warsaw"  and  "The 
Scottish  Chiefs."  He  considered  "Bleak  House"  the 
best  of  Dickens's  works  and  "Vanity  Fair"  of  Thack- 
90 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

Cray's.  Dickens's  unfinished  story,  "The  Mystery 
of  Edwin  Drood,"  occupied  much  of  his  thought 
at  this  time  and  he  attempted  more  than  once  to 
complete  the  plot  but  gave  it  up.  Of  Charles  Reade's 
masterpiece  he  said  later:  "If  you  want  philosophy 
well  put  up  in  fiction,  read  'The  Cloister  and  the 
Hearth.'  I  never  saw  such  a  novel.  There  is  ma- 
terial for  dozens  of  short  stories  in  that  one  book 
alone." 

Three  other  novels  made  a  deep  impression  upon 
him  at  this  time:  Spielhagen's  "Hammer  and  Anvil," 
Warren's  "Ten  Thousand  a  Year,"  and  John  Esten 
Cooke's  "Surry  of  Eagle's  Nest."  He  thought  War- 
ren's character  of  "Oily  Gammon"  the  best  portrait  of 
a  villain  ever  drawn  and  always  called  one  of  Greens- 
boro's lawyers  by  that  name.  Stonewall  Jackson  and 
Jeb  Stuart,  among  the  characters  introduced  by  Cooke, 
were  the  Confederate  heroes  of  whom  he  talked  with 
most  enthusiasm. 

In  fact,  his  reading  and  his  close  confinement  in 
the  drug  store  had  begun  to  threaten  his  health.  His 
mother  and  grandmother  had  both  died  of  consumption 
and  O.  Henry,  never  robust,  was  under  the  obsession 
that  he  had  already  entered  upon  his  fateful  inheri- 
tance. He  took  no  regular  exercise.  An  occasional 
fishing  or  seining  jaunt  out  to  Caldwell's  or  Orrell's 
or  Donnell's  Pond,  a  serenade  two  or  three  times  a 

91 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

week,  and  a  few  camping-out  trips  to  Pilot  Mountain 
and  beyond  made  almost  the  only  breaks  in  the  mo- 
notony of  the  drug  store  regime.  But  however  many 
or  few  fish  might  be  caught  on  these  jaunts  O.  Henry 
was  always  more  of  a  spectator  and  commentator  than 
participant;  on  the  serenades  he  played  what  he  called 
"a  silent  tenor"  violin  or  twanged  indifferently  a  guitar, 
the  E  string  of  which  was  usually  broken;  and  on 
the  camping-out  expeditions  his  zest  and  elation  were 
due  more  to  freedom  from  pills  and  prescriptions  than 
to  the  love  of  mountain  scenery. 

But  he  did  not  slight  his  work  in  the  drug  store 
and  never  intimated  that  it  was  distasteful.  It  was 
only  in  later  years  that  he  said:  "The  grind  in  the 
drug  store  was  agony  to  me."  It  doubtless  was,  not 
so  much  in  itself  as  in  the  utter  absence  of  outlook. 
No  profession  attracted  him,  and  there  was  no  one  in 
Greensboro  doing  anything  that  O.  Henry  would  have 
liked  to  do  permanently.  The  quest  of  "  What's  around 
the  corner,"  a  theme  that  he  has  wrought  into  many 
stories  and  that  grew  upon  him  to  the  last,  was  his 
nearest  approach  to  a  vocation  and  he  had  about 
exhausted  the  possibilities  of  his  birthplace.  Sixteen 
years  later,  at  the  darkest  moment  of  his  life,  his 
skill  as  a  pharmacist  was  to  help  him  as  no  other 
profession  could  have  helped  him.  But  even  if  the 
future  had  been  known,  there  was  nothing  more  to  be 
92 


BIRTHPLACE  AND  EARLY  YEARS 

learned  about  drugs  in  his  uncle's  drug  store,  nor  would 
added  knowledge  have  proved  an  added  help. 

The  release  came  unexpectedly.  Three  sons  of 
Dr.  James  K.  Hall,  Lee,  Dick,  and  Frank,  had  gone  to 
Texas  to  make  their  fortunes.  They  were  tall,  lithe, 
blond,  iron-sinewed  men,  and  all  had  done  well.  Lee, 
the  oldest,  had  become  a  noted  Texas  Ranger.  As 
"Red  Hall"  his  name  was  a  terror  to  evil-doers  from 
the  Red  River  to  the  Rio  Grande.  Though  Red  Hall 
himself  was  a  modest  and  silent  man,  his  brief  letters  to 
his  parents,  his  intermittent  visits  to  Greensboro,  and 
the  more  detailed  accounts  of  his  prowess  that  an 
occasional  Texas  newspaper  brought,  kept  us  aglow 
with  excitement.  Whenever  it  was  known  that  Red 
Hall  and  his  wife  were  visiting  in  Greensboro  there 
was  sure  to  be  a  gratifying  attendance  of  boys  at  the 
morning  service  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  To  see 
him  walk  in  and  out,  to  wonder  what  he  was  thinking 
about,  to  speculate  on  the  number  of  six-shooters  that 
he  had  with  him,  were  opportunities  not  lightly  dis- 
regarded. The  drug  store  was,  of  course,  headquarters 
for  the  latest  from  Texas  and  O.  Henry  used  to  hold 
us  breathless  as  he  retailed  the  daring  arrests  and 
hair-breadth  'scapes  of  this  quiet  Greensboro  man 
whom  the  citizens  of  the  biggest  State  in  the  Union 
had  already  learned  to  lean  upon  in  time  of  peril. 

In  March,  1882,  Doctor  and  Mrs.  Hall  were  planning 

93 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

to  visit  their  sons  in  Texas.  O.  Henry  at  this  time  had 
a  hacking  cough  and  Doctor  Hall  used  to  wince  as  if 
struck  whenever  he  heard  it.  "Will,"  he  said,  a  few 
days  before  starting  on  the  long  trip,  "I  want  you  to 
go  with  us.  You  need  the  change,  and  ranch  life  will 
build  you  up."  Never  in  his  life  had  O.  Henry  re- 
ceived an  invitation  that  so  harmonized  with  every 
impulse  of  his  nature.  It  meant  health  and  romance. 
It  was  the  challenge  of  all  that  he  had  read  and  dreamed. 
It  was  the  call  of  "What's  around  the  corner"  with 
Red  Hall  as  guide  and  co-seeker. 


94 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

RANCH    AND    CITY    LIFE    IN    TEXAS 

IF  O.  HENRY  could  have  chosen  the  ranch  and  the 
ranch  manager  that  he  was  to  visit  in  Texas  he  could 
not  have  done  better  than  to  choose  the  ranch  in  La 
Salle  County  that  had  Lee  Hall  at  its  head.  He  was 
to  see  much  more  of  Dick  Hall  than  of  Lee,  but  it  was 
Lee's  personality  and  Lee's  achievement  that  opened 
the  doors  of  romance  to  him  in  Texas  and  contributed 
atmosphere  and  flavour  to  the  nineteen  stories  that 
make  up  his  "Heart  of  the  West." 

Red  Hall,  as  we  prefer  to  call  him,  was  now  at  the 
height  of  his  fame.  The  monument  erected  to  him 
in  the  National  Cemetery,  in  San  Antonio,  contains 
only  the  brief  inscription: 

Jesse  Lee  Hall 

1849-1911 

Captain  Co.  M.,  1st  U.  S.  Vol.  Iiif. 

War  with  Spain 

But  had  there  been  no  war  with  Spain  Red  Hall's  claim 
on  the  gratitude  of  the  citizens  of  the  Lone  Star  State 
would  have  been  almost  equally  well  founded.  "He 
was  the  bravest  man  I  ever  knew,"  said  the  old  Co- 

95 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

manche  chief  against  whose  warriors  Red  Hall  had 
led  the  Texans  in  the  last  battle  with  the  tribe  in  north- 
east Texas.  "  He  did  more  to  rid  Texas  of  desperadoes/' 
wrote  Mr.  John  E.  Elgin,*  "to  establish  law  and  order, 
than  any  officer  that  Texas  ever  had.  He  has  made 
more  bad  men  lay  down  their  guns  and  delivered  more 
desperadoes  and  outlaws  into  the  custody  of  the  courts, 
and  used  his  own  gun  less,  than  any  other  officer  in 
Texas."  "I  have  known  him  intimately  for  twenty- 
five  years,"  wrote  Major-General  Jesse  ]\I.  Lee|, 
United  States  Army  Retired,  "in  peace  and  in  war. 
No  braver  spirit,  no  more  devoted  friend  ever  passed 
from  earth.  He  was  'the  bravest  of  the  brave,' 
and  his  heart  was  as  tender  as  that  of  the  most 
lovable  woman.  His  heroic  deeds  would  fill  a 
volume." 

Ten  years  before  0.  Henry  went  to  Texas  Red 
Hall's  name  had  become  one  to  conjure  with.  When 
Edward  King,  at  the  instance  of  Scrihner's  Monthly^ 
visited  the  fifteen  ex-slave  States  in  1873-1874,  he 
met  Red  Hall  and  paid  prompt  tribute  to  his  daring 
and  to  his  unique  success  in  awing  and  arresting  men 
without  using  his  pistol.  The  desperado  problem  was 
especially  acute  along  the  Red  River  because  the 
thieves  could  cross  into  Indian  Territory  where  arrest 


*In  the  Daily  Express,  San  Antonio,  March  20,  1911. 
tibid.,  March  18,  1911. 

90 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 
was  almost  Impossible.  Mr.  King  describes  the  situa- 
tion as  follows  :* 

So  frequent  had  this  method  of  escape  become  at  the  time  of 
the  founding  of  Denison,  that  the  law-abiding  citizens  were 
enraged;  and  the  famous  deputy-sheriff,  "Red  Hall,"  a  young  man 
of  great  courage  and  unflinching  "nerve,"  determined  to  attempt 
the  capture  of  some  of  the  desperadoes.  Arming  himself  with  a 
Winchester  rifie,  and  with  his  belt  garnished  with  navy  revolvers, 
he  kept  watch  on  certain  professional  criminals.  One  day,  soon 
after  a  horse-thief  had  been  heard  from  in  a  brilliant  dash  of  grand 
larceny,  he  repaired  to  the  banks  of  the  Red  River,  confident 
that  the  thief  would  attempt  to  flee. 

In  due  time,  the  fugitive  and  two  of  his  friends  appeared  at 
the  river,  all  armed  to  the  teeth,  and  while  awaiting  the  ferry- 
boat, were  visited  by  Hall,  who  drew  a  bead  upon  them,  and 
ordered  them  to  throw  down  their  arms.  They  refused,  and  a 
deadly  encounter  was  imminent;  but  he  finally  awed  them  into 
submission,  threatening  to  have  the  thief's  comrades  arrested  for 
carrying  concealed  weapons.  They  delivered  up  their  revolvers 
and  even  their  rifles,  and  fled,  and  the  horse-thief,  rather  than  risk 
a  passage-at-arms  with  the  redoubtable  Hall,  returned  with  him 
to  Denison,  after  giving  the  valiant  young  constable  some  ugly 
wounds  on  the  head  with  his  fist.  The  passage  of  the  river  having 
thus  been  successfully  disputed  by  the  law,  the  rogues  became 
somewhat  more  wary. 

"Red  Hall"  seemed  to  bear  a  charmed  life.  He  moved  about 
tranquilly  every  day  in  a  community  where  there  were  doubtless 
an  hundred  men  who  would  have  delighted  to  shed  his  blood; 
was  often  called  to  interfere  in  broils  at  all  hours  of  the  night; 
yet  his  life  went  on.  He  had  been  ambushed  and  shot  at  and 
threatened  times  innumerable,  yet  had  always  exhibited  a  scorn 
for  his  enemies,  which  finally  ended  in  forcing  them  to  admire 
him. 


*"The  Great  South"  (1874),  pp.  178-179. 

97 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

Red  Hall  was  made  Lieutenant  of  the  Texas  Rangers 
in  April,  1877,  and  received  his  commission  as  Captain 
in  the  same  year.  Of  his  life  in  1882  and  of  O.  Henry's 
association  with  him,  Mrs.  Lee  Hall  has  k'ndly  written 
a  short  sketch  from  which  I  am  permitted  to  quote : 

At  the  time  Willie  Porter  was  with  us  in  Texas,  Captain  Hall 
had  charge  of  the  ranch  in  La  Salle  County  belonging  to  the  Dull 
Brothers,  of  Harrisburg,  Pennsylvania.  He  had  a  contract  with 
tliese  gentlemen  to  buy  the  land,  fence  and  stock  it,  and  then 
operate  the  ranch  as  Superintendent.  And  it  is  this  ranch  and 
his  life  thereon  that  O.  Henry  has  immortalized  in  many  of  his 
Texas  stories.  Captain  Hall  had  to  rid  La  Salle  County  of  a 
notorious  band  of  fence-cutting  cattle  thieves,  and  his  famous 
result  is  chronicled  in  the  Bexar  County  Courts  of  1882.  He 
finally  succeeded  in  electing  "Charlie"  McKinney,  a  former  mem- 
ber of  his  company  of  Rangers,  as  sheriff  of  La  Salle  County,  and 
this  officer  proved  himself  most  efficient  and  capable,  securing 
peace  to  that  community  until  his  untimely  death. 

When  we  first  went  to  the  ranch,  we  occupied  a  small  frame 
house  of  one  room,  about  12  x  8  feet  in  size.  This  room  was 
sitting-room,  bedroom,  dining-room,  etc.,  in  fact  the  whole  house. 
They  then  built  a  log  house,  about  12  x  35  feet,  for  Captain  Hall 
and  myself,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dick  Hall  took  possession  of  the 
log  house,  and  it  was  here  that  Willie  Porter  first  stayed  with  them. 

We  lived  a  most  unsettled  exciting  existence.  Captain  Hail 
was  in  constant  danger.  His  life  was  threatened  in  many  ways, 
and  the  mail  was  heavy  with  warnings,  generally  in  the  shape 
of  crude  sketches,  portraying  effigies  with  ropes  around  the  necks, 
and  bearing  the  unfailing  inscription  "Your  Necktie."  We  usu- 
ally travelled  at  night,  nearly  always  with  cocked  guns.  It  was 
at  this  period  of  our  life,  during  the  struggle  between  the  legitimate 
owners  and  the  cattle  thieves,  that  O.  Ilcnry  saw  something  of 
the  real  desperado. 
98 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

Willie  Porter  himself  had  a  most  charming  but  shy  personality 
at  this  time.  I  remember  him  very  distinctly  and  pleasantly. 
At  the  time  he  was  on  the  ranch  with  us  he  was  really  living  with 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dick  Hall,  though  he  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  our 
house.  The  intercourse  between  O.  Henry  and  Captain  Hall 
was  more  of  a  social  than  a  business  nature,  though  he  acted  as 
cowboy  for  a  period  under  Captain  Hall  about  the  year  1882. 

One  does  not  have  to  read  O.  Henry's  Texas  stories 
very  closely  to  detect  the  presence  of  Red  Hall.  When- 
ever a  Ranger  officer  is  mentioned  there  is  a  striking 
absence  of  the  strident,  swash-buckling,  blood-and- 
thunder  characteristics  that  are  popularly  supposed 
to  go  with  the  members  of  the  famous  force,  but  there 
stands  before  us  a  calm  and  determined  man  who  uses 
his  pistol  with  instant  precision  but  only  as  a  last 
resort.  This  is  the  real  type  of  the  Ranger  officer, 
dime  novels  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  and  this 
is  the  type  that  O.  Henry  has  portrayed.  In  "The 
Caballero's  Way,"  Lieutenant  Sandridge  of  the  Rangers 
is  described  as  "six  feet  two,  blond  as  a  Viking,  quiet 
as  a  deacon,  dangerous  as  a  machine  gun." 

In  "An  Afternoon  Miracle,"  the  conversation  falls 
on  Bob  Buckley,  another  Ranger  Lieutenant: 

"I've  heard  of  fellows,"  grumbled  Broncho  Leathers,  "what 
was  wedded  to  danger,  but  if  Bob  Buckley  ain't  committed  bigamy 
with  trouble,  I'm  a  son  of  a  gun." 

" Peculiarness  of  Bob  is,"  inserted  the  Nueces  Kid,  "he  ain't 
had  proper  trainin'.     He  never  learned  how  to  git  skeered.     Now 

99 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

a  man  ought  to  be  skeered  enough  when  he  tackles  a  fuss  to  hanker 
after  readin'  his  name  on  the  Ust  of  survivors,  anyway." 

"Buckley,"  commented  Ranger  No.  3,  who  was  a  misguidec? 
Eastern  man,  burdened  with  an  education,  "scraps  in  such  a 
solemn  manner  that  I  have  been  led  to  doubt  its  spontaneity. 
I'm  not  quite  onto  his  system,  but  he  fights,  Uke  Tybalt,  by  the 
book  of  arithmetic." 

"I  never  heard,"  mentioned  Broncho,  "about  any  of  Dibble's 
ways  of  mixin'  scrappin'  and  cipherin'." 

"Triggernometry.''"  suggested  the  Nueces  infant. 

"That's  rather  better  than  I  hoped  from  you,"  nodded  the 
Easterner,  approvingly.  "The  other  meaning  is  that  Buckley 
never  goes  into  a  fight  without  giving  away  weight.  He  seems 
to  dread  taking  the  slightest  advantage.  That's  quite  close  to 
foolhardiness  when  you  are  dealing  with  horse-thieves  and  fence- 
cutters  who  would  ambush  you  any  night,  and  shoot  you  in  the 
back  if  they  could." 

O.  Henry  was  to  remain  on  the  La  Salle  County 
ranch  for  two  years.  Both  Mrs.  Dick  Hall  and  Mrs. 
Lee  Hall  were  fond  of  books  and,  though  their  libraries 
were  constantly  augmented  by  visits  to  Austin  and 
San  Antonio,  O.  Henry  more  than  kept  pace  with  the 
increase.  "His  thirst  for  knowledge  of  all  kinds," 
says  Mrs.  Dick  Hall,  "was  unquenchable.  History, 
fiction,  biography,  science,  and  magazines  of  every 
description  were  devoured  and  were  talked  about  with 
eager  interest."  Tennyson  became  now  his  favourite 
poet  and,  as  O.  Henry's  readers  would  infer,  remained 
so  to  the  end.  Webster's  "Unabridged  Dictionary" 
was  also  a  constant  companion.  He  used  it  not  merely 
100 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

as  a  reference  book  but  as  a  source  of  ideas.  It  became 
to  him  in  the  isolation  of  ranch  Hfe  what  Herkimer's 
"Handbook  of  Indispensable  Information"  had  been 
to  Sanderson  Pratt  and  "The  Rubaiyat"  of  Omar 
Khayyam  to  Idaho  Green  in  "The  Handbook  of 
Hymen."  Mrs.  Hall  championed  Worcester  while 
O.  Henry  believed  Worcester  a  back  number  and 
Webster  the  only  up-to-date  guide.  The  Webster- 
Worcester  differences  in  spelling  and  pronunciation 
were  at  his  tongue's  end  and  when  he  went  to  Austin 
he  used  to  challenge  the  boys  in  the  Harrell  home  to 
"stump"  him  on  any  point  on  which  Webster  had 
registered  an  opinion.  "I  carried  Webster's  *  Un- 
abridged Dictionary'  around  with  me  for  two  years," 
he  said,  "while  herding  sheep  for  Dick  Hall." 

There  is  more  than  humour  in  his  review  of  Webster 
published  in  the  Houston  Daily  Post:* 


We  find  on  our  table  quite  an  exhaustive  treatise  on  various 
subjects  written  in  IVIr.  Webster's  well  known,  lucid,  and  piquant 
style.  There  is  not  a  dull  line  between  the  covers  of  the  book. 
The  range  of  subjects  is  wide,  and  the  treatment  light  and  easy 
without  being  flippant.  A  valuable  feature  of  the  work  is  the 
arranging  of  the  articles  in  alphabetical  order,  thus  facilitating 
the  finding  of  any  particular  word  desired.  Mr.  Webster's  vo- 
cabulary is  large,  and  he  always  uses  the  right  word  in  the  right 
place.  Mr.  Webster's  work  is  thorough,  and  we  predict  that  he 
will  be  heard  from  again. 

♦February  23,  1896. 

101 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

Dick  Hall  had  been  educated  at  Guilford  College, 
a  well-known  Quaker  school  near  Greensboro,  and  had 
learned  French  and  Spanish  from  a  Monsieur  Maurice 
of  the  old  Edgeworth  Female  Seminary.  0.  Henry 
began  now  the  study  of  French  and  German  but  more 
persistently  of  Spanish.  French  and  German  were 
taken  up  as  diversions  but,  as  Mexican-Spanish  was 
spoken  all  around  him,  he  absorbed  it  as  a  part  of  his 
environment  and  in  three  months  was  the  best  speaker 
of  it  on  the  ranch.  Not  content  with  the  "Greaser" 
dialect  he  bought  a  Spanish  grammar  and  learned  to 
read  and  speak  Castilian  Spanish.  There  is  no  evi- 
dence that  he  studied  Latin  after  leaving  Greensboro. 
The  knowledge  of  it  that  he  took  with  him  was  only 
that  of  a  well-trained  drug  clerk  and  enough  of  Caesar 
to  enable  him  to  misquote  accurately. 

He  had  not  been  long  on  the  ranch  before  he  received 
his  cowboy  initiation,  "the  puncher's  accolade."  The 
ritual  varies  but  the  treatment  of  Curly  in  "The  Higher 
Abdication"  typifies  the  general  aim  and  method: 

Three  nights  after  that  Curly  rolled  himself  in  his  blanket  and 
went  to  sleep.  Then  the  other  punchers  rose  up  softly  and  be- 
gan to  make  preparations.  Ranse  saw  Long  Collins  tie  a  rope 
to  the  horn  of  a  saddle.  Others  were  getting  out  their  six- 
shooters. 

"Boys,"  said  Ranse,  "I'm  much  obliged.  I  was  hoping  you 
would.     But  I  didn't  like  to  ask." 

Half  a  dozen  six-shooters  began  to  pop— awful  yells  rent  the 

102 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

air — Long  Collins  galloped  wildly  across  Curly's  bed,  dragging 
the  saddle  after  him.  That  was  merely  their  way  of  gently 
awaking  their  victim.  Then  they  hazed  him  for  an  hour, 
carefully  and  ridiculously,  after  the  code  of  cow  camps.  When- 
ever he  uttered  protest  they  held  him  stretched  over  a  roll 
of  blankets  and  thrashed  him  woefully  with  a  pair  of  leather  leg- 
gings. 

And  all  this  meant  that  Curly  had  won  his  spurs,  that  he  was 
receiving  the  puncher's  accolade.  Nevermore  would  they  be 
polite  to  him.  But  he  would  be  their  "pardner"  and  stirrup- 
brother,  foot  to  foot. 

But  O.  Henry  was  still  the  dreamer  and  onlooker 
rather  than  the  active  or  regular  participant  in  the 
cowboy  disciplines.  He  learned  or  rather  absorbed 
with  little  effort  the  art  of  lassoing  cattle,  of  dipping 
and  shearing  sheep,  of  shooting  accurately  from  the 
saddle,  of  tending  and  managing  a  horse.  Even  the 
cowboys  conceded  his  premiership  as  a  broncho-buster. 
He  became  also  a  skilled  amateur  cook,  than  which  no 
other  accomplishment  was  more  serviceable  on  the 
La  Salle  County  ranch.  But  he  had  no  set  or  regular 
tasks.  He  lived  with  the  Halls  not  as  an  employee 
but  as  one  of  the  family.  He  rode  regularly  once 
a  week  to  Fort  Ewell  fifteen  miles  away  and  occasion- 
ally to  Cotulla  which  was  forty  miles  from  the  ranch 
house.  But  his  interest  was  mainly  in  the  novelty  of 
ranch  life,  in  the  contrast  between  it  and  the  Greens- 
boro life,  in  the  strange  types  of  character  that  he 
learned  to  know,  and  in  the  self-appointed  task  of 

103 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

putting  what  he  saw  into  paragraphs  or  pictures  which 
he  promptly  destroyed. 

This  blend  of  close  observation,  avid  reading,  varied 
experience,  and  self-discipline  in  expression  was  an 
incomparable  preparation  for  his  future  work.  No 
occasional  visitor  on  a  ranch,  no  man  who  had  not 
learned  to  hold  the  reins  and  the  pen  with  equal  mas- 
tery, could  have  described  Raidler's  ride  in  "Hygeia 
at  the  Soli  to" : 

If  anything  could,  this  drive  should  have  stirred  the  acrimonious 
McGuire  to  a  sense  of  his  ransom.  They  sped  upon  velvety  wheels 
across  an  exhilarant  savanna.  The  pair  of  Spanish  ponies  struck 
a  nimble,  tireless  trot,  which  gait  they  occasionally  relieved  by  a 
wild,  untrammelled  gallop.  The  air  was  wine  and  seltzer,  per- 
fumed, as  they  absorbed  it,  with  the  delicate  redolence  of  prairie 
flowers.  The  road  perished,  and  the  buckboard  swam  the  un- 
charted billows  of  the  grass  itself,  steered  by  the  practised  hand 
of  Raidler,  to  whom  each  tiny  distant  mott  of  trees  was  a  signboard, 
each  convolution  of  the  low  hills  a  voucher  of  course  and  distance. 

None  but  a  sensitive  nature,  gifted  but  disciplined, 
could  achieve  a  paragraph  like  this  from  "The  Missing 
Chord": 

The  ranch  rested  upon  the  summit  of  a  lenient  slope.  The 
ambient  prairie,  diversified  by  arroyos  and  murky  patches  of 
brush  and  pear,  lay  around  us  like  a  darkened  bowl  at  the  bottom 
of  which  we  reposed  as  dregs.  Like  a  turquoise  cover  the  sky 
pinned  us  there.  The  miraculous  air,  heady  with  ozone  and  made 
memorably  sweet  by  leagues  of  wild  flowerets,  gave  tang  and 
104 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

savour  to  the  breath.  In  the  sky  was  a  great,  round,  mellow 
searchhght  which  we  knew  to  be  no  moon,  but  the  dark  lantern 
of  summer,  who  came  to  hunt  northward  the  cowering  spring. 
In  the  nearest  corral  a  flock  of  sheep  lay  silent  until  a  groundless 
panic  would  send  a  squad  of  them  huddling  together  with  a  drum- 
ming rush.  For  other  sounds  a  shrill  family  of  coyotes  yapped 
beyond  the  shearing-pen,  and  whippoorwills  twittered  in  the  long 
grass.  But  even  these  dissonances  hardly  rippled  the  clear  tor- 
rent of  the  mocking-bu-ds'  notes  that  fell  from  a  dozen  neighbour- 
ing shrubs  and  trees.  It  would  not  have  been  preposterous  for 
one  to  tiptoe  and  essay  to  touch  the  stars,  they  hung  so  bright 
and  imminent. 

An  interesting  impression  of  O.  Henry  at  this  time 
is  given  by  Mr.  Joe  Dixon*  who  had  written  "Car- 
bonate Days,"  which  he  was  later  to  destroy,  and  was 
looking  around  for  some  one  to  draw  the  pictures: 

One  day  John  Maddox  came  in  and  said:  "See  here,  Joe — ^there 
is  a  young  fellow  here  who  came  from  North  CaroUna  with  Dick 
Hall,  named  Will  Porter,  who  can  draw  like  blazes.  I  believe  he 
would  be  the  very  one  to  make  the  illustrations  for  your  book. 
Dick  Hall  owns  a  sheep  ranch  out  not  very  far  from  here,  and 
Porter  is  working  for  him.  Now,  you  might  go  out  there  and 
take  the  book  along  and  tell  him  just  about  what  you  want,  and 
let  him  have  a  crack  at  it." 

It  looked  like  a  pretty  good  idea  to  me,  for  it  seemed  to  me 
that  a  man  who  had  seen  something  of  the  same  life  might  better 
be  able  to  draw  the  pictures. 

I  found  Porter  to  be  a  young,  silent  fellow,  with  deep,  brooding, 
blue  eyes,  cynical  for  his  years,  and  with  a  facile  pen,  later  to  be 
turned  to  word-painting  instead  of  picture-drawing. 

NelYork'"!Sy 'iS  °^  ^'  "^"^'  ^'^  "'  ^*""  '^^^"  ^^  ^^^^  ^-  ^^^^  ^"^^^  Bookman, 

105 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

I  would  discuss  the  story  with  Will  in  the  daytime,  and  at 
night  he  would  draw  the  pictures.  There  were  forty  of  them  in 
all.  And  while  crude,  they  were  all  good  and  true  to  the  life 
they  depicted. 

The  ranch  was  a  vast  chaparral  plain,  and  for  three  weeks 
Porter  worked  on  the  illustrations,  and  he  and  I  roamed  about 
the  place  and  talked  together.  We  slept  together  in  a  rude  little 
shack.  I  became  much  interested  in  the  boy's  personality.  He 
was  a  taciturn  fellow,  with  a  peculiar  little  hiss  when  amused, 
instead  of  the  boyish  laugh  one  might  have  expected,  and  he 
could  give  the  queerest  caustic  turn  to  speech,  getting  off  epigrams 
like  little  sharp  bullets,  every  once  in  a  while,  and  always  unex- 
pectedly. 

One  night  Mrs.  Hall  said  to  me:  "Do  you  know  that  that 
quiet  boy  is  a  wonderful  writer.?  He  slips  in  here  every  now  and 
then  and  reads  to  me  stories  as  fine  as  any  Rider  Haggard  ever 
wrote." 

Mrs.  Hall  was  a  highly  cultivated  woman  and  her  words  deeply 
impressed  me.  After  I  had  gained  Will's  confidence  he  let  me 
read  a  few  of  his  stories,  and  I  found  them  very  fine. 

"Will,"  I  said  to  him  one  day,  "why  don't  you  try  your  hand 
at  writing  for  the  magazines?"  But  he  had  no  confidence  in 
himseff,  and  destroyed  his  stories  as  fast  as  he  wrote  them. 

"Well,  at  any  rate,"  I  said,  "try  your  hand  at  newspaper  work." 
But  he  couldn't  see  it,  and  went  on  writing  and  destroying. 

Only  a  few  of  0.  Henry's  letters  from  the  ranch  to 
friends  in  Greensboro  have  been  preserved.  Most  of 
these  were  written  to  Mrs.  J.  K.  Hall,  mother  of  Dick 
and  Lee,  and  to  Dr.  W.  P.  Beall.*  Dr.  Beall  had 
recently  moved  to  Greensboro  from  Lenoir,  North 
Carolina,  to  practise  medicine  with  Doctor  Hall.     He 

•See  "Rolling  Stones,"  pages  255-261. 

106 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

became  a  staunch  friend  of  O.  Henry  and  suggested 
to  the  Vesper  Reading  Club,  of  Lenoir,  that  they  elect 
the  young  ranchman  to  honourary  membership.  Fol- 
lowing are  extracts  from  O.  Henry's  letter  of  acknowl- 
edgment : 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Vesper  Reading  Club  : 

Some  time  ago  I  had  the  pleasm-e  of  receiving  a  letter  from 
the  secretary  of  your  association  which,  on  observing  the  strange 
postmark  of  Lenoir,  I  opened  with  fear  and  trembling,  although 
I  knew  I  didn't  owe  anybody  anything  in  that  city.  I  began  to 
peruse  the  document  and  found,  first,  that  I  had  been  elected  an 
honourary  member  of  that  old  and  world-renowned  body  amidst 
thunders  of  applause  that  resounded  far  among  the  hills  of  Cald- 
well County,  while  the  deafening  cheers  of  the  members  were 
plainly  heard  above  the  din  of  the  loafers  in  the  grocery  store. 
When  I  had  somewhat  recovered  from  the  shock  which  such  an 
unexpected  honor  must  necessarily  produce  on  a  person  of  deli- 
cate sensibilities  and  modest  ambition,  I  ventured  to  proceed  and 
soon  gathered  that  I  was  requested  to  employ  my  gigantic  intellect 
in  writing  a  letter  to  the  club.  I  again  picked  myself  up,  brushed 
the  dust  off,  and  was  disappointed  not  to  find  a  notice  of  my 
nomination  for  governor  of  North  Carolina. 

The  origin  of  the  idea  that  I  could  write  a  letter  of  any  interest 
to  any  one  is  entirely  unknown  to  me.  The  associations  with 
which  I  have  previously  corresponded  have  been  generally  in  the 
dry  goods  line  and  my  letters  for  the  most  part  of  a  conciliatory, 
pay-you-next-week  tendency,  which  could  hardly  have  procured 
me  the  high  honors  that  your  club  has  conferred  upon  me.  But 
I  will  try  and  give  you  a  truthful  and  correct  account  in  a  brief 
and  condensed  manner  of  some  of  -the  wonderful  things  to  be  seen 
and  heard  in  this  country.  The  information  usually  desired  in 
such  a  case  is  in  regard  to  people,  climate,  manners,  customs,  and 
general  peculiarities. 

107 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

The  people  of  the  State  of  Texas  consist  principally  of  men, 
women,  and  children,  with  a  sprinkling  of  cowboys.  The  weather 
is  very  good,  thermometer  rarely  rising  above  2,500  degrees  in 
the  shade  and  hardly  ever  below  212,  There  is  a  very  pleasant 
little  phase  in  the  weather  which  is  called  a  "norther"  by  the  natives, 
which  endears  the  country  very  much  to  the  stranger  who  experi- 
ences it.  You  are  riding  along  on  a  boiling  day  in  September, 
dressed  as  airily  as  etiquette  will  allow,  watching  the  fish  trying 
to  climb  out  of  the  pools  of  boiling  water  along  the  way  and  won- 
dering how  long  it  would  take  to  walk  home  with  a  pocket  com- 
pass and  75  cents  in  Mexican  money,  when  a  wind  as  cold  as 
the  icy  hand  of  death  swoops  down  on  you  from  the  north  and  the 
"norther"  is  upon  you. 

Where  do  you  go?  K  you  are  far  from  home  it  depends  entirely 
upon  what  kind  of  life  you  have  led  previous  to  this  time  as  to 
where  you  go.  Some  people  go  straight  to  heaven  while  others 
experience  a  change  of  temperature  by  the  transition.  "North- 
ers" are  very  useful  in  killing  off  the  surplus  population  in  some 
degree,  while  the  remainder  die  naturally  and  peacefully  in  their 
boots. 


After  a  long  imaginary  interview  with  a  citizen  of 
Texas  whose  picture  was  enclosed  but  has  been  lost, 
the  letter  ends : 


But  I  must  bring  this  hurried  letter  to  a  close.  I  have  already 
written  far  into  the  night.  The  moon  is  low  and  the  wind  is  still. 
The  lovely  stars,  the  "forget-me-nots  of  the  angels,"  which  have 
blossomed  all  night  in  the  infinite  meadows  of  heaven,  unheeded 
and  unseen  by  us  poor  sleepy  mortals  for  whom  they  spread  their 
shining  petals  and  silvery  beams  in  vain,  are  twinkling  above  in 
all  their  beauty  and  mystery.  The  lonely  cry  of  the  coyote  is 
heard  mingling  with  the  noise  of  a  piece  of  strong  Texas  bacon 
trying  to  get  out  of  the  pantry.  It  is  at  a  time  like  this  when 
108 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

all  is  quiet,  when  even  nature  seems  to  sleep,  that  old  memories 
come  back  from  their  graves  and  haunt  us  with  the  scenes  they 
bring  before  us.  Faces  dead  long  ago  stare  at  us  from  the  night 
and  voices  that  once  could  make  the  heart  leap  with  joy  and  the 
eye  hght  up  with  pleasure  seem  to  sound  in  our  ears.  With  such 
feelings  we  sit  wrapped  in  thought,  living  over  again  our  youth 
until  the  awakening  comes  and  we  are  again  in  the  present  with 
its  cares  and  bitterness.  It  is  now  I  sit  wondering  and  striving 
to  recall  the  past.  Longingly  I  turn  my  mind  back,  groping  about 
in  a  time  that  is  gone,  never  more  to  return,  endeavoring  to 
think  and  convene  my  doubting  spirit  whether  or  not  I  fed  the 
pup  at  supper.  But  Usten!  I  hear  the  members  of  the  V.  R.  C. 
rushing  to  the  door.  They  have  torn  away  the  man  stationed  there 
to  keep  them  inside  during  the  transactions  of  the  evening,  and 
I  will  soon  close  with  the  request  that  the  secretary  in  notifying 
me  not  to  send  any  more  letters  may  break  the  terrifying  news 
as  gently  as  possible,  applying  the  balm  of  fair  and  delusive  sen- 
tences which  may  prepare  me  at  first  by  leading  up  gradually  to 
the  fearful  and  hope-destroying  announcement. 

In  a  letter*  to  Mrs.  J.  K.  Hall  he  confines  himself 
to  the  two  ranches  of  her  sons. 

La  Salle  Co.,  Texas,  January  20,  1883. 
Dear  Mrs.  Hall:  Your  welcome  letter  which  I  received  a 
good  while  ago  was  much  appreciated,  and  I  thought  I  would 
answer  it  in  the  hopes  of  getting  another  from  you.  I  am  very 
short  of  news,  so  if  you  find  anything  in  this  letter  rather  incred- 
ible, get  Doctor  Beall  to  discount  it  for  you  to  the  proper  size. 
He  always  questions  my  veracity  since  I  came  out  here.  Why 
didn't  he  do  it  when  I  was  at  home?  Dick  has  got  his  new  house 
done,  and  it  looks  very  comfortable  and  magnificent.  It  has  a 
tobacco-barn-like  grandeur  about  it  that  always  strikes  a  stranger 

♦The  Bookman,  New  York,  August,  1913. 

109 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

with  awe,  and  during  a  strong  north  wind  the  safest  place  about 
it  is  outside  at  the  northern  end. 

A  colom-ed  lady  is  now  slinging  hash  in  the  kitchen  and  has 
such  an  air  of  command  and  condescension  about  her  that  the 
pots  and  kettles  all  get  out  of  her  way  with  a  rush.  I  think  she 
is  a  countess  or  a  dukess  in  disguise.  Cotulla  has  grown  wonder- 
fully since  you  left;  thirty  or  forty  new  houses  have  gone  up  and 
thirty  or  forty  barrels  of  whiskey  gone  down.  The  barkeeper  is 
going  to  Europe  on  a  tour  next  summer,  and  is  thinking  of  buying 
Mexico  for  his  little  boy  to  play  with.  They  are  getting  along 
finely  with  the  pasture;  there  are  sixty  or  seventy  men  at  work 
on  the  fence  and  they  have  been  having  good  weather  for  working. 
Ed.  Brockman*  is  there  in  charge  of  the  commissary  tent,  and  issues 
provisions  to  the  contractors.  I  saw  him  last  week,  and  he  seemed 
very  well. 

Lee  came  up  and  asked  me  to  go  down  to  the  camps  and  take 
Brockman's  place  for  a  week  or  so  while  he  went  to  San  Antonio. 
Well,  I  went  down  some  six  or  seven  miles  from  the  ranch.  On 
arriving  I  counted  at  the  commissary  tent  nine  niggers,  sixteen 
Mexicans,  seven  hounds,  twenty-one  six-shooters,  four  desperadoes, 
three  shotguns,  and  a  barrel  of  molasses.  Inside  there  were  a 
good  many  sacks  of  corn,  flour,  meal,  sugar,  beans,  coffee  and 
potatoes,  a  big  box  of  bacon,  some  boots,  shoes,  clothes,  saddles, 
rifles,  tobacco  and  some  more  hounds.  The  work  was  to  issue 
the  stores  to  the  contractors  as  they  sent  for  them,  and  was  light 
and  easy  to  do.  Out  at  the  rear  of  the  tent  they  had  started  a 
graveyard  of  men  who  had  either  kicked  one  of  the  hounds  or 
prophesied  a  norther.  When  night  came,  the  gentleman  whose 
good  fortune  it  was  to  be  dispensing  the  stores  gathered  up  his 
saddle-blankets,  four  old  corn  sacks,  an  oil  coat  and  a  sheepskin, 
made  all  the  room  he  could  in  the  tent  by  shifting  and  arranging 
the  bacon,  meal,  etc.,  gave  a  sad  look  at  the  dogs  that  immediately 
filled  the  vacuum,  and  went  and  slept  outdoors.  The  few  days  I 
was  there  I  was  treated  more  as  a  guest  than  one  doomed  to 
labour.     Had  an  offer  to  gamble  from  the  nigger  cook,  and  was 

*  A  Greensboro  boy  who  also  followed  the  Halls  to  La  Salle  County. 

110 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

allowed  as  an  especial  favour  to  drive  up  the  nice,  pretty  horses 
and  give  them  some  corn.  And  the  kind  of  accommodating  old 
tramps  and  cowboys  that  constitute  the  outfit  would  drop  in  and 
board,  and  sleep  and  smoke,  and  cuss  and  gamble,  and  lie  and 
brag,  and  do  everything  in  their  power  to  make  the  time  pass 
pleasantly  and  profitably — to  themselves.  I  enjoyed  the  thing 
very  much,  and  one  evening  when  I  saw  Brockman  roll  up  to  the 
camp,  I  was  very  sorry,  and  went  off  very  early  next  morning  in 
order  to  escape  the  heartbreaking  sorrow  of  parting  and  leave- 
taking  with  the  layout. 

Now,  if  you  think  this  fine  letter  worth  a  reply,  write  me  a  long 
letter  and  tell  me  what  I  would  like  to  know,  and  I  will  rise  up 
and  call  you  a  friend  in  need,  and  send  you  a  fine  cameria  obscuria 
view  of  this  ranch  and  itemised  accounts  of  its  operations  and 
manifold  charms.  Tell  Doctor  Beall  not  to  send  me  any  cake; 
it  would  make  some  postmaster  on  the  road  ill  if  he  should  eat  too 
much,  and  I  am  a  friend  to  all  humanity.  I  am  writing  by  a 
very  poor  light,  which  must  excuse  bad  spelhng  and  uninteresting 
remarks. 

I  remain,  Very  respectfully  yours, 

W.  S.  Porter, 

Everybody  well. 

The  following  letter  to  Mrs.  Hall  indicates  that 
O.  Henry  had  determined  to  leave  the  ranch  and  to  strike 
out  for  the  city.     It  is  his  last  ranch  letter: 

La  Salle  Co.,  Texas. 
March  13th  '84. 
My  Dear  Mrs.  Hall: 

As  you  must  be  somewhat  surprised  that  I  haven't  been  answer- 
ing your  letters  for  a  long  time,  I  thought  I  would  write  and  let 
you  know  that  I  never  got  any  of  them  and  for  that  reason  have 
not  replied.    With  the  Bugle,  Patriot,  and  your  letters  stopped,  I 

111 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

am  way  behind  in  Greensboro  news,  and  am  consumed  with  a 
burning  desire  to  know  if  JuUus  A.  Gray  has  returned  from  Fayette- 
ville,  if  Caldcleugh  has  received  a  fresh  assortment  of  canary  bird 
cages,  or  if  Fishblate's  clothing  is  still  two  hundred  percent  below 
first  cost  of  manufacturing,  and  I  know  that  you  will  take  pity  on 
the  benighted  of  the  far  southwest  and  relieve  the  anxiety.  Do 
you  remember  the  little  hymn  you  introduced  into  this  country? 

Far  out  upon  the  prairie. 

How  many  children  dwell, 
Who  never  read  the  Bible 

Nor  hear  the  sabbath  bell! 

Instead  of  praying  Sundays, 

You  hear  their  fire-arms  bang, 
They  chase  cows  same  as  Mondays 

And  whoop  the  wild  mustang. 

And  seldom  do  they  get,  for 

To  take  to  church  a  gal. 
It's  mighty  hard  you  bet,  for 

Them  in  the  chaparral. 

But  I  will  not  quote  any  more  as  of  course  you  know  all  the 
balance,  and  will  proceed  to  tell  you  what  the  news  is  in  this  sec- 
tion. Spring  has  opened  and  the  earth  is  clothed  in  verdure  new. 
The  cowboy  has  doffed  his  winter  apparel  and  now  appeareth 
in  his  summer  costume  of  a  blue  flannel  shirt  and  spurs.  An  oc- 
casional norther  still  swoops  down  upon  him,  but  he  buckles  on 
an  extra  six  shirts  and  defies  the  cold.  The  prairies  are  covered 
with  the  most  lovely  and  gorgeous  flowers  of  every  description — • 
columbine,  jaspers,  junipers,  hollyhocks,  asteroids,  sweet-marjoram, 
night-blooming  cereus,  anthony-overs,  percolators,  hyoscyamuses, 
bergamots,  crystallized  anthers,  fuchsias,  and  horoscopes.  The 
lovely  and  deliciously  scented  meningitis  twines  its  clustering 
112 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

tendrils  around  the  tall  raesqultes,  and  the  sweet  little  purple 
thanatopsis  is  found  in  profusion  on  every  side.  Tall  and  perfumed 
volutas  wave  in  the  breeze  while  the  modest  but  highly-flavored 
megatherium  nestles  in  the  high  grass.  You  remember  how  often 
you  used  to  have  the  train  stopped  to  gather  verbenas  when  you 
were  coming  out  here.'*  Well,  if  you  should  come  now,  the  engineer 
would  have  to  travel  the  whole  distance  in  Texas  with  engine 
reversed  and  all  brakes  down  tight,  you  would  see  so  many  rare 
and  beautiful  specimens. 

I  believe  everybody  that  you  take  any  interest  in  or  know  is 
well  and  all  right.  Everything  is  quiet  except  the  wind,  and  that 
will  stop  as  soon  as  hot  weather  begins.  I  am  with  Spanish  like 
Doctor  Hall's  patients,  still  "progressing,"  and  can  now  tell  a 
Mexican  in  the  highest  and  most  grammatical  Castilian  to  tie  a 
horse  without  his  thinking  I  mean  for  him  to  turn  him  loose.  I 
would  like  to  put  my  knowledge  of  the  language  into  profitable 
use,  but  am  undecided  whether  consulship  to  Mexico  or  herd  sheep. 
Doctor  Beall  suggests  in  his  letter  to  me  the  other  day  that  I 
come  back  to  North  Carolina  and  buy  a  shovel  and  go  to  work 
on  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  Railroad,  but  if  you  will 
examine  a  map  of  your  State  you  will  see  a  small  but  plainly  dis- 
cernible line  surrounding  the  State  and  constituting  its  border. 
Over  that  border  I  will  cross  when  I  have  some  United  States 
bonds,  a  knife  with  six  blades,  an  oroide  watch  and  chain,  a 
taste  for  strong  tobacco,  and  a  wild  western  manner  intensely 
suggestive  of  cash. 

I  figure  up  that  I  made  two  thousand  five  hundred  dollars  last 
spring  by  not  having  any  money  to  buy  sheep  with;  for  I  would 
have  lost  every  sheep  in  the  cold  and  sleet  of  last  March  and  a 
lamb  for  each  one  besides.  So  you  see  a  fellow  is  sometimes  up 
and  sometimes  down,  however  large  a  capital  he  handles,  owing 
to  the  fluctuations  of  fortune  and  the  weather. 

This  is  how  I  console  myself  by  philosophy,  which  is  without  a 
flaw  when  analyzed;  but  you  know  philosophy,  although  it  may 
furnish  consolation,  starts  back  appalled  when  requested  to  come 
to  the  front  with  such  little  necessaries  as  shoes  and  circus  tickets 

113 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

and  clothes  and  receipted  board  bills,  etc.;  and  so  some  other 
science  must  be  invoked  to  do  the  job.  That  other  science  has 
but  four  letters  and  is  pronounced  Work.  Expect  my  next  letter 
from  the  busy  marts  of  commerce  and  trade. 

I  hope  you  will  write  to  me  soon,  when  you  have  time.     Give 
Doctor  Hall  my  highest  regards,  and  the  rest  of  the  family. 

I  remain 

Very  truly  yours 
W.  S.  Porter. 


This  letter  had  hardly  reached  Mrs.  Hall  before  O. 
Henry  found  himself  In  Austin,  the  county  seat  of 
Travis  and  the  capital  of  Texas.  Dick  Hall  had  moved 
to  a  new  ranch  in  Williamson  County,  which  forms 
the  northern  boundary  of  Travis  County,  and  O.  Henry 
had  decided  to  give  up  ranch  life  and  to  live  in  Austin. 
Here  he  remained  until  October,  1895,  when  he  went 
to  Houston  as  reporter  for  the  Houston  Daily  Post. 
Dick  Hall  had  many  friends  in  Austin,  among  them 
Mr.  Joe  Harrell,  a  retired  merchant.  Mr.  Harrell 
was  born  near  Greensboro,  in  1811,  and  every  fellow 
Carolinian  found  a  hospitable  welcome  under  his  roof. 
When  it  was  decided,  therefore,  that  O.  Henry  was  to 
remain  in  Austin,  Mr.  Harrell  invited  the  young  Tar- 
Heel  and  fellow  countyman  to  come  to  his  home,  and 
here  he  lived  for  three  years.  Mr.  Harrell  and  his 
three  sons  became  devoted  friends  of  the  newcomer, 
whom  they  found  to  be  timid  and  retiring  but  an 
unequalled  entertainer  in  a  coterie  of  intimates  and  a 
114 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 
genius  with  his  pencil.  Mr.  Harrell  would  accept 
nothing  for  board  or  lodging  but  regarded  O.  Henry 
as  an  adopted  son. 

O.  Henry's  stay  in  Austin  was  marked  by  the  same 
sort  of  quick  and  wide-reaching  reaction  to  his  environ- 
ment that  had  already  become  characteristic  and  that 
was  to  culminate  during  his  eight  years  in  New  York. 
As  the  confinement  in  the  Greensboro  drug  store  had 
whetted  his  appetite  for  the  freedom  of  the  ranch,  so 
the  isolation  of  ranch  life  had  made  him  all  the  more 
eager  for  the  social  contacts  of  city  life.     "A  man  may 
see  so  much,"  says  O.  Henry,  in  "The  Hiding  of  Black 
Bill,"  "that  he'd  be  bored  to  turn  his  head  to  look  at  a 
$3,000,000  fire  or  Joe  Weber  or  the  Adriatic  Sea.     But 
let  him  herd  sheep  for  a  spell,  and  you'll  see  him  split- 
ting his  ribs  laughing  at  'Curfew  Shall  Not  Ring  To- 
night,' or  really  enjoying  himself  playing  cards  with 
ladies."     Austin    had    only    about    ten    thousand    in- 
habitants in  1884  but  as  the  capital  of  the  great  State, 
and  the  seat  of  the  rapidly  growing  State  University, 
it  was  peculiarly  representative  of  the  old  and  the 
new,  of  the  East  and  the  West  and  the  Southwest. 
To  the  knight-errant  of  "What's  around  the  corner" 
it  offered  if  not  a  wide  at  least  a  varied  field  of  oppor- 
tunity, and  he  proceeded  forthwith  to  occupy. 

His  friends  in  Austin  say  that  no  one  ever  touched 
the  city  at  so  many  points  or  knew  its  social  strata  as 


115 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

familiarly  as  O.  Henry.  Occasional  clerk  in  a  tobacco 
store  and  later  in  a  drug  store,  bookkeeper  for  a  real 
estate  firm,  draftsman  in  a  land  office,  paying  and 
receiving  teller  in  a  bank,  member  of  a  military  com- 
pany, singer  in  the  choirs  of  the  Presbyterian,  Baptist, 
and  Episcopal  churches,  actor  in  private  theatricals, 
editor  of  a  humorous  paper,  serenader  and  cartoon- 
ist, 0.  Henry  would  seem  to  have  viewed  the  little  city 
from  all  possible  angles.  The  only  segment  of  the  life 
that  he  seems  not  to  have  touched  was  the  Univer- 
sity. 

And  yet  he  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  identified 
himself  with  Austin  or  with  Austin  interests.  Every- 
body who  knew  him  liked  him  and  felt  his  charm,  but 
few  got  beneath  the  surface.  "Our  times  lapped  by 
only  one  year,"  says  Harry  Peyton  Steger,*  "and  the 
freshman  knew  not  that  the  wizard  was  around  the 
corner,  but  my  acquaintance  there  helped  me  in  my 
search  when  I  went  there  in  January  of  this  year. 
The  first  ten  days  on  the  ground  showed  me  that  Will 
Porter  (it  was  only  in  his  post-Texan  days  that  people 
called  him  '  Sydney,'  I  believe)  was  known  to  hundreds 
and  that  few  knew  him.  In  his  twenties  and  later  in 
New  York,  he  was  the  same  lone  wolf.  But  to  his 
charm  and  brilliance  all  bear  witness."  In  "The 
Man  about  Town,"  O.  Henry  questions  four  classes  of 

*The  Cosmopolitan,  October,  1912. 

116 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 
people  about  his  multiform  subject  only  to  find  at  last 
that  the  real  man  about  town  is  the  one  who  puts  the 
questions. 

But  O.  Henry  differed  from  his  typical  man  about 
town  as  widely  as  Jaques  differed  from  Hamlet,  or  as  a 
yachtsman  differs  from  a  seasoned  tar.  He  worked  hard 
when  he  did  work  and  went  "bumming,"  as  he  called 
it,  by  way  of  recreative  reaction  To  go  bumming 
was  his  phrase  for  a  sort  of  democratic  romancing.  One 
of  his  Austin  intimates,  Dr.  D.  Daniels,  says:* 


Porter  was  one  of  the  most  versatile  men  I  had  ever  met.  He 
was  a  fine  singer,  could  write  remarkably  clever  stuff  under  all 
circumstances,  and  was  a  good  hand  at  sketching.  And  he  was 
the  best  mimic  I  ever  saw  in  my  Hfe.  He  was  one  of  the  genuine 
democrats  that  you  hear  about  more  often  than  you  meet.  Night 
after  night,  after  we  would  shut  up  shop,  he  would  call  to  me  to 
come  along  and  "go  bumming."  That  was  his  favorite  expres- 
sion for  the  night-time  prowling  in  which  we  indulged.  We 
would  wander  through  streets  and  alleys,  meeting  with  some  of 
the  worst  specimens  of  down-and-outers  it  has  ever  been  my  privi- 
lege to  see  at  close  range.  I've  seen  the  most  ragged  specimen  of 
a  bum  hold  up  Porter,  who  would  always  do  anything  he  could 
for  the  man.  His  one  great  failing  was  his  inability  to  say  "No" 
to  a  man. 

He  never  cared  for  the  so-called  "higher  classes,"  but  watched 
the  people  on  the  streets  and  in  the  shops  and  cafes,  getting  his 
ideas  from  them  night  after  night.  I  think  that  it  was  in  this  way 
he  was  able  to  picture  the  average  man  with  such  marvellous 
fidelity. 


*The  Bookman,  New  York,  July,  1913. 

117 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

Another  chum  of  those  days  writes  :* 

As  a  business  man,  his  face  was  calm,  almost  expressionless; 
his  demeanour  was  steady,  even  calculated.  He  always  worked 
for  a  high  class  of  employers,  was  never  wanting  for  a  position, 
and  was  prompt,  accurate,  talented,  and  very  efficient;  but  the 
minute  he  was  out  of  business — that  was  all  gone.  He  always 
approached  a  friend  with  a  merry  twinkle  in  his  eye  and  an  ex- 
pression which  said:  "Come  on,  boys,  we  are  going  to  have  a  lot 
of  fun,"  and  we  usually  did.  .  .  .  He  lived  in  an  atmosphere 
of  adventure  that  was  the  product  of  his  own  imagination.  He  was 
an  inveterate  story-teller,  seemingly  purely  from  the  pleasure  of 
it,  but  he  never  told  a  vulgar  joke,  and  as  much  as  he  loved  humour 
he  would  not  sacrifice  decency  for  its  sake  and  his  stories  about 
women  were  always  refined. 

The  first  paying  position  that  O.  Henry  held  in 
Austin  was  that  of  bookkeeper  for  the  real  estate  firm 
of  Maddox  Brothers  and  Anderson.  He  worked  here 
for  two  years  at  a  salary  of  a  hundred  dollars  a  month. 
"He  learned  bookkeeping  from  me,"  said  Mr.  Charles 
E.  Anderson,  "and  I  have  never  known  any  one  to 
pick  it  up  with  such  ease  or  rapidity.  He  was  number 
one,  and  we  were  loath  to  part  with  him."  Mr. 
Anderson  persuaded  O.  Henry  to  live  with  him  after 
his  resignation  as  bookkeeper,  and  Mr.  John  Maddox 
offered  him  the  money  to  go  to  New  York  and  study 
drawing  but  O.  Henry  dechned. 

In  the  meantime,  Dick  Hall  had  been  elected  Land 


*The  Bookman,  New  York,  July,  1913. 

118 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

Commissioner  of  Texas  and  O.  Henry  applied  for  a 
position  under  him.  "The  letter  of  application," 
said  Mrs.  Hall,  "was  a  masterpiece.  Nothing  that 
I  have  since  seen  from  his  pen  seemed  so  clever.  We 
kept  it  and  re-read  it  for  many  years  but  it  has  mysteri- 
ously disappeared."  Dick  replied  that  if  0.  Henry 
could  prepare  himself  in  three  months  for  the  oJBSce  of 
assistant  compiling  draftsman,  the  position  would 
be  given  him.  "It  was  wonderful  how  he  did  it," 
said  Dick,  "but  he  was  the  most  skilful  draftsman  in 
the  force." 

O.  Henry  remained  in  the  General  Land  Office  for 
four  years,  from  January,  1887,  to  January,  1891.  The 
building  stands  just  across  from  the  Capitol  on  a  high 
hill,  and  both  its  architecture  and  its  storied  service 
moved  O.  Henry's  pen  as  did  no  other  building  in 
Texas.  Many  years  after  he  had  left  the  State  he 
was  to  reproduce  in  "Georgia's  Ruling,"  "Witches' 
Loaves,"  and  "Buried  Treasure"  either  the  General 
Land  Office  itself  or  some  tradition  or  experience  as- 
sociated with  it.  "People  living  in  other  States," 
he  writes,*  "can  form  no  conception  of  the  vastness  and 
importance  of  the  work  performed  here  and  the  signif- 
icance of  the  millions  of  records  and  papers  composing 
the  archives  of  this  office.  The  title  deeds,  patents, 
transfers,  and  legal  documents  connected  with  every 

*  "Bexar  Scrip  No.  2692."    The  story  appeared  in  the  Rolling  Stone,  May  5,  1894. 

119 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

foot  of  land  owned  in  the  State  of  Texas  are  filed  here." 
The  building  he  describes  as  follows: 

Whenever  you  visit  Austin  you  should  by  all  means  go  to  see 
the  General  Land  Office.  As  you  pass  up  the  avenue  you  turn 
sharp  round  the  corner  of  the  court  house,  and  on  a  steep  hill 
before  you  you  see  a  mediaeval  castle.  You  think  of  the  Rhine;  the 
"castled  crag  of  Drachenfels";  the  Lorelei;  and  the  vine-clad 
slopes  of  Germany.  And  German  it  is  in  every  line  of  its  archi- 
tecture and  design.  The  plan  was  drawn  by  an  old  draftsman 
from  the  "Vaterland,"  whose  heart  still  loved  the  scenes  of  his 
native  land,  and  it  is  said  he  reproduced  the  design  of  a  certain 
castle  near  his  birthplace  with  remarkable  fidelity. 

Under  the  present  administration  a  new  coat  of  paint  has  vul- 
garized its  ancient  and  venerable  walls.  Modern  tiles  have  re- 
placed the  limestone  slabs  of  its  floors,  worn  in  hollows  by  the 
tread  of  thousands  of  feet,  and  smart  and  gaudy  fixtures  have 
usurped  the  place  of  the  time-worn  fiu'niture  that  has  been  con- 
secrated by  the  touch  of  hands  that  Texas  will  never  cease  to 
honor.  But  even  now,  when  you  enter  the  building,  you  lower 
your  voice,  and  time  turns  backward  for  you,  for  the  atmosphere 
which  you  breathe  is  cold  with  the  exudations  of  buried  genera- 
tions. The  building  is  stone  with  a  coating  of  concrete;  the  walls 
are  immensely  thick;  it  is  cool  in  the  summer  and  warm  in  the 
winter;  it  is  isolated  and  sombre;  standing  apart  from  the  other 
state  buildings,  sullen  and  decaying,  brooding  on  the  past. 

But  the  happiest  event  of  O.  Henry's  life  in  Texas 
was  his  marriage  on  July  5,  1887,  to  Miss  Athol 
Estes,  the  seventeen -year-old  daughter  of  Mrs.  G.  P. 
Roach.  It  was  a  case  of  love  at  first  sight  on  O.  Henry's 
part  but  he  deferred  actual  courtship  until  Miss  Athol 
had  finished  school.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Roach,  however, 
120 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

entered  a  demurrer  on  the  score  of  health.  Miss 
Athol's  father  had  died  of  consumption  as  had  O. 
Henry's  mother  and  grandmother.  But  the  young 
lovers  were  not  to  be  denied.  An  elopement  was 
instantly  planned  and  romantically  carried  out.  Bor- 
rowing a  carriage  from  Mr.  Charles  E.  Anderson  they 
drove  out  at  midnight  to  the  residence  of  Dr.  R.  K. 
Smoot,  the  Presbyterian  minister  in  whose  choir  they 
both  sang.  Mr.  Anderson  was  dispatched  to  the 
Roach  home  to  sue  for  peace.  Forgiveness  was  at  last 
secured,  and  O.  Henry  never  had  two  stauncher  friends 
than  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Roach.  In  the  darkest  hours  of  his 
life  their  love  for  him  knew  no  waning  and  their  faith 
in  him  neither  variableness  nor  the  shadow  of  turning. 

To  the  manner  of  his  marriage  O.  Henry  occasion- 
ally referred  in  later  years  and  always  with  the  deepest 
feeling  and  the  tenderest  memory.  The  moonlight 
drive  under  the  trees,  the  borrowed  carriage,  the  wit- 
ticisms on  the  way,  the  parental  opposition,  the  feeling 
of  romantic  achievement,  the  courage  and  serenity 
and  joy  of  the  little  woman  at  his  side,  his  own  sense 
of  assured  and  unclouded  happiness  for  the  future — 
these  came  back  to  him  touched  with  pathos  but  radi- 
ant and  hallowed  in  the  retrospect.  Surely  a  whiff 
of  that  July  night  transfigures  these  words,*  written 
eighteen  years  later: 

*  From  "  Sisters  of  the  Golden  Circle." 

121 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

On  the  highest  rear  seat  was  James  WilHams,  of  Cloverdale, 
Missouri,  and  his  Bride.  CapitaHze  it,  friend  typo — that  last 
word — word  of  words  in  the  epiphany  of  Hfe  and  love.  The  scent 
of  the  flowers,  the  booty  of  the  bee,  the  primal  drip  of  spring 
waters,  the  overture  of  the  lark,  the  twist  of  lemon  peel  on  the  cock- 
tail of  creation — such  is  the  bride.  Holy  is  the  wife;  revered  the 
mother;  galliptious  is  the  summer  girl — but  the  bride  is  the  certi- 
fied check  among  the  wedding  presents  that  the  gods  send  in 
when  man  is  married  to  mortality.  .  .  .  James  Williams 
was  on  his  wedding  trip.  Dear  kind  fairy,  please  cut  out  those 
orders  for  money  and  40  H.  P.  touring  cars  and  fame  and 
a  new  growth  of  hair  and  the  presidency  of  the  boat  club. 
Instead  of  any  of  them  turn  backward — oh,  turn  backward  and 
give  us  just  a  teeny-weeny  bit  of  our  wedding  trip  over  again. 
Just  an  hour,  dear  fairy,  so  we  can  remember  how  the  grass  and 
poplar  trees  looked,  and  the  bow  of  those  bonnet  strings  tied 
beneath  her  chin — even  if  it  was  the  hatpins  that  did  the  work. 
Can't  do  it?  Very  well;  hurry  up  with  that  touring  car  and  the 
oil  stock,  then. 

0.  Henry  found  in  his  married  life  not  only  happiness 
but  the  incentive  to  effort  that  he  had  sorely  lacked. 
It  was  an  incentive  that  sprang  from  perfect  congenial- 
ity and  from  the  ambition  to  make  and  to  have  a  home. 
Mrs.  Porter  was  witty  and  musical.  She  was  also 
stimulatively  responsive  to  the  drolleries  of  her  hus- 
band. She  cooperated  with  him  in  his  sole  journalistic 
venture  and  helped  him  with  the  society  items  of 
the  Houston  Daily  Post.  If  the  thought  of  her  did 
not  shape  the  character  of  Delia  in  "The  Gift  of  the 
Magi,"  it  might  have  done  so.  She  did  not  live  to  see 
him  become  famous  but,  if  she  had,  she  would  have 
122 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 
been  the  first  to  say  "I  told  you  so."  It  is  certainly 
no  accident  that  the  year  of  his  marriage  is  also  the 
year  in  which  he  begins  to  rely  on  his  pen  as  a  supple- 
mentary source  of  income.  The  editor  of  the  Detroit 
Free  Press  writes,  September  4,  1887: 

My  Dear  Sir:  .     ,  -^         ij 

Please  send  your  string  for  month  of  August.     And  it  would 

please  me  to  receive  further  contributions  at  once.    Send  a  budget 

every  week. 

Sincerely, 

A.  MOSLEY. 

And  again  three  months  later: 

My  Dear  Mr.  Porter: 

Your  string  for  November  just  in.  Am  sorry  it  is  not  longer. 
Check  will  be  sent  in  a  few  days. 

Can  you  not  send  more  matter— a  good  big  installment  every 
week?  I  returned  everything  that  I  felt  I  could  not  use,  in  order 
that  we  might  resume  operations  on  a  clear  board.  Hereafter 
all  unavailable  matter  shall  be  sent  back  within  two  or  three  days. 
After  you  get  a  better  idea  of  the  things  we  do  not  want,  the 
quantity  to  be  returned  will  be  very  small. 

About  the  same  time  presumably,  though  the  note 
is  undated,  the  editors  of  Truth  write  from  New  York: 

We  have  selected  "The  Final  Triumph"  and  "A  Slight  In- 
accuracy," for  which  you  will  receive  a  check  for  $6. 

In  the  printed  form  used  by  the  editors  of  Truth,  con- 
tributions   were    classified    as    Jokes,    Ideas,    Verses, 

123 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

Squibs,  Poems,  Sketches,  Stories,  and  Pictures.  The 
two  contributions  accepted  from  O.  Henry  were  entered 
on  the  hne  reserved  for  Sketches.  The  earliest  record 
of  an  accepted  short  story  that  I  have  found,  the 
earliest  evidence  that  0.  Henry  had  turned  from  para- 
graph writing  to  really  constructive  work,  is  In  the 
following  note  written  ten  years  later : 

New  York, 
Dec.  2,  1897. 
W.  S.  Porter,  Esq., 
211  E.  6th  St., 

Austin,  Texas. 
Dear  Sir:  Your  story,  "The  Miracle  of  Lava  Canon,"*  is  ex- 
cellent. It  has  the  combination  of  humane  interest  with  dramatic 
incident,  which  in  our  opinion  is  the  best  kind  of  a  story.  If  you 
have  more  like  this,  we  should  be  glad  to  read  them.  We  have 
placed  it  in  our  syndicate  of  newspapers.  The  other  stories  we 
return  herewith.     They  are  not  quite  available. 

Very  truly  yours 

The  S.  S.  McClure  Co. 

The  four  years  In  the  General  Land  Office  were 
the  happiest  years  of  O.  Henry's  life  in  Texas.  The 
work  Itself  was  congenial,  he  found  time  for  drawing, 
his  co-workers  in  the  office  were  his  w^arm  personal 
friends,  and  his  occasional  contributions  of  jokes, 
squibs,  sketches,  etc.,  could  be  counted  upon  whenever 
needed  to  help  out  the  family  larder.     There  was  born 

*This  story,  which  deserves  all  that  is  here  said  of  it,  was  entered  for  copyright  by  the 
McClure  Syndicate,  September  11,  1898,  marked  "  for  publication  September  18,  1898."  It  was 
undoubtedly  to  this  story  that  O.  Henry  referred  in  later  years  when  he  said;  "My.first  story 
was  paid  for  but  I  never  saw  it  in  print." 

124 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 
to  him  also  at  this  time  a  daughter,  Margaret  Worth 
Porter,  whom  the  proud  parents  journeyed  twice  to 
Greensboro  to  exhibit  and  whose  devotion  to  her 
father  was  to  equal,  though  it  could  not  surpass,  that 
of  the  father  to  his  only  child. 

But  a  change  was  imminent.     Dick  Hall  ran  for 
governor  of  Texas  in  1891  but  by  a  close  margin  was 
defeated  by  James  Hogg.     His  term  as  Land  Com- 
missioner had  expired,  and,  on  January  21,  O.  Henry 
resigned  his  position  as  assistant  compiling  draftsman 
and   entered   the  First   National  Bank   of  Austin   as 
paying  and  receiving  teller.     The  change,  as  will  be 
seen,  was  to  prove  a  disastrous  one,  the  only  rift  in  the 
cloud  being  that  the  new  position  was  to  widen  his 
range  of  story  themes  and  to  force  him  to  rely  wholly 
upon  his  pen  for  a  living.     He  had  hitherto  coquetted 
with  his  real  calling,  using  it  in  Scott's  words  "as  a 
staff,  not  as  a  crutch,"  as  a  buffet  lunch  rather  than  as 
a  solid  meal.     Early  in  December,  1894,  he  resigned 
his  position  in  the  bank  but  not  until  he  had  begun  to 
edit  a  humorous  weekly  which  he  called  the  Rolling 

Stone. 

The  first  issue  of  the  Rolling  Stone  appeared  in 
Austin  on  April  28,  1894,  and  the  last  on  April  27, 
1895.  It  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  flourished  between 
these  dates:  it  only  flickered.  "It  rolled  for  about  a 
year,"  said  O.  Henry,  "and  then  showed  unmistakable 


125 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

signs  of  getting  mossy.  Moss  and  I  never  were  friends, 
and  so  I  said  good-bye  to  it."  "It  was  one  of  the  means 
we  employed,"  writes  Mr.  James  P.  Crane,  of  Chicago, 
one  of  the  editors,  *'to  get  the  pleasure  out  of  life  and 
never  appealed  to  us  as  a  money-making  venture. 
We  did  it  for  the  fun  of  the  thing."  This  may  have 
been  O.  Henry's  motive  in  the  beginning,  but  after 
resigning  his  position  in  the  bank  the  financial  side 
of  the  Rolling  Stone  assumed  a  new  importance. 
In  fact,  the  following  letter  to  Mr.  Crane  shows  that 
O.  Henry  was  looking  to  his  little  paper  for  income : 

San  Antonio,  Dec.  20,  1894. 
Dear  Jeems: 

I  am  writing  this  in  the  City  of  Tomales.  Came  over  last  night 
to  work  up  the  Rolling  Stone  a  little  over  here.  Went  over  the 
city  by  gas-light.  It  is  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made.  I  quit 
the  bank  a  day  or  two  ago.  I  found  out  that  the  change  was 
going  to  be  made,  so  I  concluded  to  stop  and  go  to  work  on  the 
paper. 

Are  you  still  in  Chicago  and  what  are  the  prospects?  I  tell 
you  what  I  want  to  do.  I  want  to  get  up  in  that  country  some- 
where on  some  kind  of  newspaper.  Can't  you  work  up  something 
for  us  to  go  at  there?  If  you  can  I  will  come  up  there  any  time 
at  one  day's  notice.  I  can  worry  along  here  and  about  live  but 
it  is  not  the  place  for  one  to  get  ahead  in.  You  know  that,  don't 
you?  See  if  you  can't  get  me  a  job  up  there,  or  if  you  think  our 
paper  would  take,  and  we  could  get  some  support,  what  about 
starting  it  up  there? 

I'm  writing  you  on  the  jump,  will  send  you  a  long  letter  in  a 
few  days  which  will  be  more  at  length  than  a  shorter  one  would. 

Yours  as  ever 

Bill. 

126 


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SPECIMEN    PAGE    OF    '*THE   ROLLING    STONE ' 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

The  visit  to  San  Antonio  was  the  beginning  of  the 
end  of  the  Rolling  Stone.  In  the  issue  of  January  26, 
1895,  the  announcement  is  made  that  the  paper  is 
"pubHshed  simultaneously  in  Austin  and  San  Antonio, 
Texas,  every  Saturday."  Encouraging  letters  had 
been  received  from  Bill  Nye  and  John  Kendrick 
Bangs  but  when  O.  Henry  was  over-persuaded  to  launch 
the  Rolling  Stone  into  the  Callaghan  mayoralty  fight 
in  San  Antonio  its  doom  was  sealed.  The  Austin 
end  of  the  little  weekly  had  already  lost  heavily  through 
a  picture  with  a  humorous  underline  which  O.  Henry 
had  innocently  inserted.  The  picture  was  of  a  German 
musician  brandishing  his  baton.  Underneath  were 
the  lines: 

With  his  baton  the  professor  beats  the  bars, 
'Tis  also  said  he  beats  them  when  he  treats; 

But  it  made  that  German  gentleman  see  stars 
When  the  bouncer  got  the  cue  to  bar  the  beats. 

"For  some  reason  or  other,"  says  Doctor  Daniels,* 
"that  issue  alienated  every  German  in  Austin  from 
the  Rolling  Stone  and  cost  us  more  than  we  were  able 
to  figure  out  in  subscriptions  and  advertisements." 

But  the  by-products  of  the  visits  to  San  Antonio 
were  later  to  reimburse  O.  Henry  far  over  and  beyond 
the  immediate  loss  incurred.  Cities  were  always  in  a 
peculiar  sense  his  teachers,  and  from  his  editorial  trips  to 

*The  Bookman,  New  York,  July.  1913. 

127 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

the  most  interesting  city  of  the  Southwest  he  was  later  to 
find  material  for  "  Hygeia af  the Solito,"  "The  Enchanted 
Kiss,"  "The  Missing  Chord,"  "The  Higher  Abdication," 
*' Seats  of  the  Haughty,"  and  "A  Fog  in  Santone." 

After  the  demise  of  the  Rolling  Stone,  the  oppor- 
tunity "to  get  on  some  kind  of  newspaper,"  about 
which  he  had  written  to  Mr.  Crane,  did  not  present 
itself  until  nearly  six  months  had  passed.  In  the  mean- 
time he  was  supporting  himself  by  writing  for  any 
paper  that  paid  promptly  for  humorous  contribu- 
tions. The  Rolling  Stone  had  given  him  the  oppor- 
tunity of  a  tryout  and  he  seems  never  afterward  to 
have  doubted  that  writing  of  some  sort  was  the  pro- 
fession for  which  he  was  best  fitted.  His  experience 
in  the  bank  had  also  convinced  him  that  business  was 
not  his  calling.  "Frequently  when  I  entered  the 
bank,"  said  a  citizen  of  Austin,  "O.  Henry  would  put 
hastily  aside  some  sketch  or  bit  of  writing  on  which  he 
was  engaged,  before  waiting  on  me."  He  had  lived 
in  his  writings  long  before  he  attempted  to  live  by  them. 

In  July,  1895,  O.  Henry  decided  to  accept  a  call 
to  Washington,  D.  C.  His  household  furniture  was 
sold  by  way  of  preparation  and  he  was  on  the  eve  of 
starting  when  Mrs.  Porter  became  ill.  The  doctors 
found  that  the  long-dreaded  blow  had  fallen.  She  had 
consumption.  O.  Henry  was  unwilling  to  leave  her  or 
to  attempt  so  long  a  journey  with  her.  He  continued, 
128 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

therefore,  his  contribution  of  odds  and  ends  to  news- 
papers and  in  October  was  writing  chiefly  for  the  Plain 
Dealer  of  Cleveland,  Ohio,  but  hoping  in  the  meanwhile 
to  secure  a  more  permanent  position  nearer  home. 

The  opportunity  came  when  Colonel  R.  M.  John- 
ston offered  him  a  position  on  the  Houston  Daily  Post. 
Mrs.  Porter  was  not  well  enough  at  first  to  accom- 
pany her  husband  to  Houston  but  in  a  little  while  she 
was  pronounced  much  better  and  joined  him.  Pros- 
pects were  brighter  now  than  they  had  been  since  his 
resignation  from  the  General  Land  Office.  The  Post 
was  one  of  the  recognized  moulders  of  public  opinion 
in  the  Southwest  and  O.  Henry's  work  gained  for  it 
new  distinction.  *'The  man,  woman,  or  child,"  wrote 
an  exchange,  "who  pens  'Postscripts'  for  the  Houston 
Post,  is  a  weird,  wild-eyed  genius  and  ought  to  be  cap- 
tured and  put  on  exhibition." 

"He  became,"  said  an  editorial  in  the  Post  at  the 
time  of  O.  Henry's  death,  "the  most  popular  member 
of  the  staff."  "As  a  cartoonist,"  continues  the  Post, 
"Porter  would  have  made  a  mark  equal  to  that  he 
attained  as  a  writer  had  he  developed  his  genius; 
but  he  disliked  the  drudgery  connected  with  the  draw- 
ing and  found  that  his  sketches  were  generally  spoiled 
by  any  one  else  who  took  them  to  finish.  In  the  early 
days  he  illustrated  many  of  his  stories.  Those  were 
days  before  the  present  development  of  the  art  of 

129 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

illustration,  whether  for  magazine  or  newspaper,  and 
he  did  most  of  the  work  on  chalk,  in  which  the  drawing 
was  made,  a  cast  of  lead  being  afterward  made  with 
more  or  less  general  results  of  reproducing  the  drawing 
in  the  shape  of  printing.  The  generality  of  the  result 
was  at  times  disheartening  to  the  artist  and  Porter 
never  followed  his  natural  knack  for  embodying  his 
brilliant  ideas  in  drawings."  His  salary  was  quickly 
raised  from  fifteen  to  twenty-five  dollars  a  week  and 
he  was  advised  by  Colonel  Johnston  to  go  to  New  York 
where  his  talents  would  be  more  adequately  rewarded. 

O.  Henry's  first  column  appeared  in  the  Post  on 
October  18,  1895,  his  last  on  June  22,  1896.  He  began 
with  "Tales  of  the  Town"  but  changed  quickly  to 
"Some  Postscripts  and  PenciUings,"  ending  with 
"Some  Postscripts."  But  the  names  made  no  differ- 
ence. O.  Henry  wrote  as  he  pleased.  The  cullings 
that  follow  will  give  a  better  idea  of  his  matter  and 
manner  at  this  time  than  mere  comment,  however 
extended,  could  do.  The  tribute  to  Bill  Nye  has  the 
added  interest  of  containing  0.  Henry's  only  known 
reference  to  American  humour  as  a  whole: 

(October  18,  1895) 
Of  an  editor:  He  was  a  man  apparently  of  medium  height, 
with  light  hair  and  dark  chestnut  ideas. 

(October  21,  1895) 
"Speaking  of  the  $140,000,000  paid  out  yearly  by  the  govern- 
ment in  pensions,"  said  a  prominent  member  of  Hood's  Brigade 
130 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

to  the  Posfs  representative,  "I  am  told  that  a  man  in  Indiana 
apphed  for  a  pension  last  month  on  account  of  a  surgical  operation 
he  had  performed  on  him  during  the  war.  And  what  do  you  sup- 
pose that  surgical  operation  was?" 

"Haven't  the  least  idea." 

"He  had  his  retreat  cut  off  at  the  battle  of  Gettysburg!" 

(November  3,  1895) 
LOOKING  FORWARD 

Soft  shadows  grow  deeper  in  dingle  and  dell, 

Night  hawks  are  beginning  to  roam ; 
The  breezes  are  cooler;  the  owl  is  awake. 
The  whippoorwill  calls  from  his  nest  in  the  brake; 
When 

the 

cows 

come 

home. 

The  cup  of  the  lily  is  heavy  with  dew; 

In  heaven's  aerial  dome 
Stars  twinkle;  and  down  in  the  darkening  swamp 
The  fireflies  glow,  and  the  elves  are  a-romp; 

When 

the 

cows 

come 

home. 

And  the  populist  smiles  when  he  thinks  of  the  time 

That  unto  his  party  will  come; 
When  at  the  pie  counter  they  capture  a  seat, 
And  they'll  eat  and  eat  and  eat  and  eat 

Till 

the 

cows 

come 

home. 

131 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

(November  6,  1895) 
EUGENE  FIELD 

No  gift  his  genius  might  have  had. 
Of  titles  high  in  church  or  State, 

Could  charm  him  as  the  one  he  bore 
Of  children's  poet  laureate. 

He  smiling  pressed  aside  the  bays 
And  laurel  garlands  that  he  won. 

And  bowed  his  head  for  baby  hands 
To  place  a  daisy  wreath  upon. 


He  found  his  kingdom  in  the  ways 
Of  little  ones  he  loved  so  well; 

For  them  he  tuned  his  lyre  and  sang 
Sweet  simple  songs  of  magic  spell. 


Oh,  greater  feat  to  storm  the  gates 
Of  children's  pure  and  cleanly  hearts. 

Than  to  subdue  a  warring  world 
By  stratagems  and  doubtful  arts ! 


So,  when  he  laid  him  down  to  sleep 
And  earthly  honors  seemed  so  poor; 

Methinks  he  clung  to  little  hands 
The  latest,  for  the  love  they  bore. 


A  tribute  paid  by  chanting  choirs 
And  pealing  organs  rises  high; 

But  soft  and  clear,  somewhere  he  hears 
Through  all,  a  child's  low  lullaby. 

132 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

(November  27,  1895) 
An  old  woman  who  lived  in  Fla. 
Had  some  neighbors  who  all  the  time  ba. 

Tea,  sugar,  and  soap. 

Till  she  said:  "I  do  hope 
I'll  never  see  folks  that  are  ha." 


(December  1,  1895) 

"You're  at  the  wrong  place,"  said  Cerberus.  "This  is  the 
gate  that  leads  to  the  infernal  regions,  while  this  is  a  passport  to 
heaven  that  you've  handed  me." 

"I  know  it,"  said  the  departed  Shade  wearily,  "but  it  allows 
a  stop-over  here.  You  see,  I'm  from  Galveston,  and  I've  got 
to  make  the  change  gradually." 

(December  12,  1895) 

A  young  lady  in  Houston  became  engaged  last  summer  to  one 
of  the  famous  shortstops  of  the  Texas  baseball  league.  Last  week 
he  broke  the  engagement,  and  this  is  the  reason  why: 

He  had  a  birthday  last  Tuesday,  and  she  sent  him  a  beautiful 
bound  and  illustrated  edition  of  Coleridge's  famous  poem,  "The 
Ancient  Mariner."  The  hero  of  the  diamond  opened  the  book 
with  a  puzzled  look. 

"What's  dis  bloomin'  stuff  about  anyways?"  he  said. 

He  read  the  first  two  lines : 

"  It  is  the  Ancient  Mariner, 
And  he  stoppeth  one  of  three" — 

The  famous  shortstop  threw  the  book  out  the  window,  stuck  out 
his  chin,  and  said :  "  No  Texas  sis  can't  gimme  de  umpire  face  hke 
dat.  I  swipes  nine  daisy  cutters  outer  ten  dat  comes  in  my  garden, 
dat's  what." 

(February  26,  1896) 
Bill  Nye,  who  recently  laid  down  his  pen  for  all  time,  was  a 
unique  figure  in  the  field  of  humor.     His  best  work  probably 

133 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

more  nearly  represented  American  humor  than  that  of  any 
other  writer.  IVIr,  Nye  had  a  sense  of  the  ludicrous  that  was  keen 
and  judicious.  His  humor  was  peculiarly  American  in  that  it 
depended  upon  sharp  and  unexpected  contrasts  and  the  bringing 
of  opposites  into  unlooked  for  comparison  for  its  effect.  Again 
he  had  the  true  essence  of  kindliness,  without  which  humor  is 
stripped  of  its  greatest  component  part.  His  was  the  child's 
heart,  the  scholar's  knowledge,  and  the  philosopher's  view  of  life. 
The  world  has  been  better  for  him,  and  when  that  can  be  said  of 
a  man,  the  tears  that  drop  upon  his  grave  are  more  potent  than 
the  loud  huzzas  that  follow  the  requiem  of  the  greatest  conqueror 
or  the  most  successful  statesman.  The  kindliest  thoughts  and 
the  sincerest  prayers  follow  the  great  humanitarian — for  such  he 
^as — into  the  great  beyond,  and  such  solace  as  the  hearty  condole- 
ment  of  a  million  people  can  bring  to  the  bereaved  loved  ones  of 
Bill  Nye,  is  theu-s. 

When  0.  Henry  ceased  to  write  for  the  Houston 
Daily  Post  he  had  closed  a  significant  chapter  in  his 
life.  Had  he  died  at  this  time  those  who  had  followed 
his  career  closely  would  have  seen  in  him  a  mixture  of 
Bill  Nye  and  Artemus  Ward  with  an  undeveloped 
vein  of  Eugene  Field.  There  was  a  hint  of  many  things 
which  he  was  later  to  use  as  embellishments  of  his  art, 
but  there  was  no  indication  of  the  essential  nature  of 
the  art  that  was  to  be  embellished.  A  character  in 
Fletcher's  "Love's  Pilgrimage"  is  made  to  say: 

Portly  meat. 
Bearing  substantial  stuff,  and  fit  for  hunger, 
I  do  beseech  you,  hostess,  first;  then  some  Ught  garnish, 
Two  pheasants  in  a  dish. 
134 


RANCH  AND  CITY  LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

But  0.  Henry  served  the  "light  garnish"  first.  His 
"two  pheasants"  were  the  Rolling  Stone  and  his  column 
in  the  Houston  Daily  Post.  His  more  "substantial 
stuff"  came  after  these,  but  was  not  the  natural  out- 
growth from  them. 

Nothing  that  he  had  written  for  these  two  publica- 
tions was  selected  by  him  for  reproduction  in  the 
volumes  of  his  short  stories.  The  so-called  stories 
that  he  read  to  Mrs.  Hall  on  the  ranch  and  those  that 
appeared  now  and  then  in  the  Rolling  Stone  were 
sketches  or  extravaganzas  rather  than  real  stories  at 
grips  with  real  life.  "I  was  amazed,"  said  Mrs.  Hall, 
"when  I  learned  that  O.  Henry  was  our  Will  Porter. 
I  had  thought  that  he  might  be  a  great  cartoonist  but 
had  never  thought  of  his  being  a  master  of  the  modern 
short  story." 

O.  Henry  was  now  to  begin  a  period  of  severe  trial 
and  of  prolonged  and  unmerited  humiliation.  But 
he  was  to  come  out  of  it  all  with  purpose  unified  and 
character  deepened.  Experience  with  the  seamy  side 
of  life  was  to  do  for  him  what  aimless  experimentation 
with  literary  forms  would  never  have  done. 


135 


CHAPTER  SIX 

THE    SHADOWED    YEARS 

WHEN  O.  Henry  left  Houston,  never  to  return,  he 
left  because  he  was  summoned  to  come  immediately 
to  Austin  and  stand  trial  for  alleged  embezzlement  of 
funds  while  acting  as  paying  and  receiving  teller  of 
the  First  National  Bank  of  Austin.  The  indictments 
charged  that  on  October  10,  1894,  he  misappropriated 
$554.48;  on  November  12,  1894,  $299.60;  and  on 
November  12,  1895,  $299.60. 

Had  he  gone  he  would  certainly  have  been  acquitted. 
He  protested  his  innocence  to  the  end.  "A  victim 
of  circumstances"  is  the  verdict  of  the  people  in  Austin 
who  followed  the  trial  most  closely.  Not  one  of  them, 
so  far  as  I  could  learn  after  many  interviews,  believed 
or  believe  him  guilty  of  wrong  doing.  It  was  notorious 
that  the  bank,  long  since  defunct,  was  wretchedly 
managed.  Its  patrons,  following  an  old  custom,  used 
to  enter,  go  behind  the  counter,  take  out  one  hundred 
or  two  hundred  dollars,  and  say  a  week  later:  "Porter, 
I  took  out  two  hundred  dollars  last  week.  See  if  I 
left  a  memorandum  of  it.  I  meant  to."  It  must  have 
recalled  to  0.  Henry  the  Greensboro  drug  store.  Long 
136 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

before  the  crash  came,  he  had  protested  to  his  friends 
that  it  was  impossible  to  make  the  books  balance. 
"  The  affairs  of  the  bank,"  says  Mr.'  Hyder  E.  RolHns,* 
of  Austin,  "were  managed  so  loosely  that  Porter's 
predecessor  was  driven  to  retirement,  his  successor  to 
attempted  suicide." 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  O.  Henry  boarded  the 
train  at  Houston  with  the  intention  of  going  to  Austin. 
I  imagine  that  he  even  felt  a  certain  sense  of  relief  that 
the  charge,  which  had  hung  as  a  dead  albatross  about 
his  neck,  was  at  last  to  be  unwound,  and  his  innocence 
publicly  proclaimed.  His  friends  were  confident  of 
his  acquittal  and  are  still  confident  of  his  innocence. 
If  even  one  of  them  had  been  with  O.  Henry,  all  would 
have  been  different.  But  when  the  train  reached 
Hempstead,  about  a  third  of  the  way  to  Austin, 
O.  Henry  had  had  time  to  pass  in  review  the  scenes 
of  the  trial,  to  picture  himself  a  prisoner,  to  look  into 
the  future  and  see  himself  marked  with  the  stigma  of 
suspicion.  His  imagination  outran  his  reason,  and 
when  the  night  train  passed  Hempstead  on  the  way 
to  New  Orleans,  O.  Henry  was  on  it. 

His  mind  seems  to  have  been  fully  made  up.  He 
was  not  merely  saving  himself  and  his  family  from  a 
public  humiliation,  he  was  going  to  start  life  over 
again  in  a  new  place.     His  knowledge  of  Spanish  and 

♦The  Bookman,  New  York,  October,  1914. 

137 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

his  ignorance  of  Honduras  made  the  Uttle  Central 
American  repubHc  seem  just  the  haven  in  which  to 
cast  anchor.  How  great  the  strain  was  can  be  meas- 
ured in  part  by  the  only  reference  of  the  sort,  so  far 
as  I  know,  that  0.  Henry  ever  made  to  his  life  in  the 
little  Latin  American  country:  "The  freedom,  the 
silence,  the  sense  of  infinite  peace,  that  I  found  here, 
I  cannot  begin  to  put  into  words."  His  letters  to  Mrs. 
Porter  from  Honduras  show  that  he  had  determined 
to  make  Central  America  his  home,  and  that  a  school 
had  already  been  selected  for  the  education  of  his 
daughter. 

How  long  0.  Henry  remained  in  New  Orleans,  on 
his  way  to  or  from  Honduras,  is  not  known;  long 
enough,  however,  to  draw  the  very  soul  and  body  of 
the  Crescent  City  into  the  stories  that  he  was  to  write 
years  afterward.  With  his  usual  flair  for  originality, 
he  passes  by  Mardi  Gras,  All  Saints'  Day,  Quatorze 
Juillet,  and  crevasses;  but  in  "Whistling  Dick's  Christ- 
mas Stocking,"  "The  Renaissance  of  Charleroi," 
"Cherchez  La  Femme,"  and  "Blind  Man's  Holiday," 
he  has  pictured  and  interpreted  New  Orleans  and  its 
suburbs  as  only  one  who  loved  and  lived  the  life  could 
do. 

It  is  probable  that  he  merely  passed  through  New 
Orleans  on  his  way  to  Honduras  and  took  the  first 
available  fruit  steamer  for  the  Honduran  coast,  arriv- 
138 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

ing  at  Puerto  Cortez  or  Criba  or  Trujillo.  At  any 
rate,  he  was  in  Trujillo  and  was  standing  on  the  wharf 
when  he  saw  a  man  in  a  tattered  dress  suit  step  from 
a  newly  arrived  fruit  steamer.  "Why  did  you  leave 
so  hurriedly?"  asked  O.  Henry.  "Perhaps  for  the 
same  reason  as  yourself,"  replied  the  stranger.  "What 
is  your  destination?"  inquired  O.  Henry.  "I  left 
America  to  keep  away  from  my  destination,"  was  the 
reply;  "I'm  just  drifting.  How  about  yourself?" 
"I  can't  drift,"  said  O.  Henry;  "I'm  anchored." 

The  stranger  was  Al  Jennings,  the  leader  of  one  of 
the  most  notorious  gangs  of  train  robbers  that  ever 
infested  the  Southwest.  In  "Beating  Back,"  which 
Mr.  Jennings  was  to  publish  eighteen  years  later,  one 
may  read  the  frank  confession  and  life  story  of  an  out- 
law and  ex-convict  who  at  last  found  himself  and 
"came  back"  to  Hve  down  a  desperate  past.  That 
he  has  made  good  may  be  inferred  from  the  spirit  of 
his  book,  from  the  high  esteem  in  which  he  is  held  by 
friends  and  neighbours,  and  from  the  record  of  civic 
usefulness  that  has  marked  his  career  since  his  return. 

But  when  he  and  O.  Henry  met  at  Trujillo  Mr. 
Jennings  was  still  frankly  a  fugitive  outlaw.  He  and 
his  brother  Frank  had  chartered  a  tramp  steamer  in 
Galveston,  and  the  departure  had  been  so  sudden  that 
they  had  not  had  time  to  exchange  their  dress  suits 
and   high   hats   for   a   less   conspicuous   outfit.     Mr. 

139 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

Jennings  and  his  brother  had  no  thought  of  continuing 
their  career  of  brigandage  in  Latin  America.  They 
were  merely  putting  distance  between  them  and  the 
detectives  already  on  their  trail.  O.  Henry  joined 
them  and  together  they  circled  the  entire  coast  of 
South  America.  This  was  O.  Henry's  longest  voyage 
and  certainly  the  strangest.  When  the  money  was 
exhausted,  "Frank  and  I,"  says  Mr.  Jennings,  "decided 
to  pull  off  a  job  to  replenish  the  exchequer.  We 
decided  to  rob  a  German  trading  store  and  bank  in 
northern  Texas,  and  I  asked  Porter  if  he  would  join 
us.  'No,'  he  said,  'I  don't  think  I  could.'  'Well, 
Bill,'  I  said,  'you  could  hold  the  horses,  couldn't  you.f^' 
*No,'  said  Porter,  'I  don't  think  I  could  even  hold  the 
horses.'" 

In  these  wanderings  together  Mr.  Jennings  probably 
saw  deeper  into  one  side  of  O.  Henry's  life  than  any  one 
else  has  ever  seen.  In  a  letter  to  Harry  Peyton  Steger, 
he  writes:  "Porter  was  to  most  men  a  difficult  proposi- 
tion, but  when  men  have  gone  hungry  together,  feasted 
together,  and  looked  grim  death  in  the  face  and  laughed, 
it  may  be  said  they  have  a  knowledge  of  each  other. 
Again,  there  is  no  period  in  a  man's  life  that  so  brings 
out  the  idiosyncrasies  as  gaunt  and  ghastly  famine. 
I  have  known  that  with  our  friend  and  could  find  no 
fault.  If  the  world  could  only  know  him  as  I  knew 
him,  the  searchlight  of  investigation  could  be  turned 
140 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

on  his  beautiful  soul  and  find  It  as  spotless  as  a  bar  of 
sunlight  after  the  storm-cloud  had  passed."  In  a  letter 
just  received  Mr.  Jennings  says:  *' Porter  joined  with 
Frank  In  urging  me  to  leave  the  *  Trail,'  establish 
ourselves  In  Latin  America,  and  forget  the  past. 
Quite  often.  Indeed,  he  spoke  of  his  wife  and  his  child 
and  there  was  always  a  mist  in  his  eye  and  a  sob  in  his 
throat." 

O.  Henry's  letters  to  Mrs.  Porter  came  regularly 
after  the  first  three  weeks.  The  letters  were  inclosed 
In  envelopes  directed  to  Mr.  Louis  Krelsle,  in  Austin, 
who  handed  them  to  Mrs.  Porter.  "Mrs.  Porter  used 
to  read  me  selections  from  her  husband's  letters," 
said  Mrs.  Krelsle.  "They  told  of  his  plans  to  bring 
Athol  [Mrs.  Porter]  and  Margaret  to  him  as  soon  as 
he  was  settled.  He  had  chosen  a  school  for  Margaret 
in  Honduras  and  was  doing  everything  he  could  to 
have  a  little  home  ready  for  them.  At  one  time  he  said 
he  was  digging  ditches.  He  also  mentioned  a  chum 
whom  he  had  met.  Sometimes  they  had  very  little 
to  eat,  only  a  banana  each.  He  had  a  hard  time  but 
his  letters  were  cheerful  and  hopeful  and  full  of  affec- 
tion. Mr.  and  Mrs.  Roach  were,  of  course,  willing 
to  provide  for  Athol  and  Margaret  but  Athol  did  not 
want  to  be  dependent.  She  said  she  did  not  loiow  how 
long  they  would  be  separated,  so  she  planned  to 
do  something  to  earn  some  money.     She  commenced 

141 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

taking  a  course  in  a  business  college  but  ill  health 
interfered.  When  Christmas  came  she  made  a  point 
lace  handkerchief,  sold  it  for  twenty-five  dollars,  and 
sent  her  husband  a  box  containing  his  overcoat,  fine 
perfumery,  and  many  other  delicacies.  I  never  saw 
such  will  power.  The  only  day  she  remained  in  bed 
was  the  day  she  died." 

O.  Henry  did  not  know  till  a  month  later  that  this 
box  was  packed  by  Mrs.  Porter  when  her  temperature 
was  105.  As  soon  as  he  learned  it,  he  gave  up  all  hope 
of  a  Latin  American  home  and  started  for  Austin, 
determined  to  give  himself  up  and  to  take  whatever 
medicine  fate  or  the  courts  had  in  store  for  him.  He 
passed  again  through  New  Orleans,  and,  according  to 
the  trial  reports,  arrived  in  Austin  on  February  5, 
1897.  His  bondsmen  were  not  assessed,  but  the  amount 
of  the  bond  was  doubled  and  O.  Henry  went  free  till 
the  next  meeting  of  the  Federal  Court. 

All  of  his  time  and  thought  was  now  given  to  Mrs. 
Porter.  When  she  was  too  weak  to  walk  O.  Henry 
would  carry  her  to  and  from  the  carriage  in  which  they 
spent  much  of  their  time.  His  wanderlust  seemed  stilled 
at  last  and  these  days  of  home-keeping  and  home- 
tending  were  happy  days  to  both,  though  they  knew 
that  the  end  was  near.  Mrs.  Porter  had  been  almost 
reared  in  the  Sunday-school  and  the  neighbours 
say  that  it  was  a  familiar  sight  on  Sunday  mornings, 
142 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

in  the  last  spring  and  summer,  to  see  O.  Henry  and 
his  wife  driving  slowly  beneath  the  open  windows  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church.  Here  they  would  remain 
unseen  by  the  congregation  till  the  service  was  nearly 
over.  Then  they  would  drive  slowly  back.  Each 
service,  it  was  feared,  might  be  the  last.  The  end 
came  on  July  25  th. 

After  many  postponements  O.  Henry's  case  came 
to  trial  in  February,  1898.  He  pleaded  not  guilty 
but  seemed  indifferent.  "  I  never  had  so  non-communi- 
cative a  client,"  said  one  of  his  lawyers.  "He  would 
tell  me  nothing."  0.  Henry  begged  his  friends  not 
to  attend  the  trial  and  most  of  them  respected  his 
wishes.  In  fact,  he  seemed,  as  usual,  to  be  only  a 
spectator  of  the  proceedings.  He  was  never  self- 
defensive  or  even  self-assertive,  and  at  this  crisis  of 
his  life  he  showed  an  aloofness  which,  however  hard 
to  understand  by  those  who  did  not  know  him,  was  as 
natural  to  him  as  breathing.  He  simply  retreated  into 
himself  and  let  the  lawyers  fight  it  out. 

One  error  in  the  indictment  was  so  patent  that  it 
is  hard  to  understand  how  it  could  have  gone  un- 
challenged. He  was  charged,  as  has  been  stated,  with 
having  embezzled  $299.60  on  November  12,  1895, 
"the  said  W.  S.  Porter  being  then  and  there  the  teller 
and  agent  of  a  certain  National  Banking  Association, 
then  and  there  known  and  designated  as  the  First 

143 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

National  Bank  of  Austin."  Nothing  in  O.  Henry's 
life  is  better  substantiated  than  that  on  November 
12,  1895,  he  was  living  in  Houston  and  had  resigned  his 
position  in  the  Austin  bank  early  in  December,  1894. 
And  yet  the  reader  will  hardly  believe  that  this  fla- 
grant inconsistency  in  the  charge  against  him  has  re- 
mained to  this  moment  unnoticed.  The  foreman  of 
the  grand  jury  and  the  foreman  of  the  trial  jury  are 
reported  to  have  regretted  afterward  that  they  had 
voted  to  convict.  "O.  Henry  was  an  innocent  man," 
said  the  former,  "and  if  I  had  known  then  what  I 
know  now,  I  should  never  have  voted  against  him." 
As  the  contradiction  in  time  and  place  was  not  one 
of  the  things  that  either  foreman  learned  later,  one 
cannot  help  asking  what  it  was  that  led  to  conviction. 
The  answer  is  easy.  O.  Henry  lost  his  case  at 
Hempstead,  not  at  Austin.  "Y^our  Grand  Jurors," 
so  runs  the  charge,  "further  say  that  between  the  days 
the  sixth  (6th)  of  July  a.  d.  1896  and  the  fifth  (5th) 
of  February  a.  d.  1897  the  aforesaid  W.  S.  Porter  was 
a  fugitive  and  fleeing  from  justice  and  seeking  to  avoid 
a  prosecution  in  this  court  for  the  offense  hereinbefore 
set  out."  This  was  true,  and  the  humiliation  of  it  and 
the  folly  of  it  were  so  acutely  felt  by  O.  Henry  that  he 
remained  silent.  I  think  it  unlikely  that  he  noticed 
the  impossible  date,  November  12,  1895,  for  a  more 
dateless  and  timeless  man  never  lived.  To  a  trusted 
144 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

friend  in  New  York,  0.  Henry  declared  that  Conrad's 
"Lord  Jim"  made  an  appeal  to  him  made  by  no  other 
book.  "I  am  like  Lord  Jim,"  he  added,  "because  we 
both  made  one  fateful  mistake  at  the  supreme  crisis  of 
our  lives,  a  mistake  from  which  we  could  not  recover." 

"Lord  Jim"  has  been  called  the  greatest  psychological 
study  of  cowardice  that  modern  literature  has  to  its 
credit.  But  Lord  Jim  was  no  coward.  When  he 
knew  that  the  ship  was  about  to  sink,  a  certain  irreso- 
lution took  possession  of  him  and  he  did  not  and  could 
not  wake  the  passengers.  He  did  not  think  of  saving 
himself,  but  his  mind  conjured  up  the  horrors  of  panic, 
the  tumult,  the  rush,  the  cries,  the  losing  fight  for  place, 
and  it  seemed  infinitely  better  to  him  that  they  should 
all  go  down  in  peace  and  quiet.  "Which  of  us,"  says 
Conrad,  "has  not  observed  this,  or  maybe  experienced 
something  of  that  feeling  in  his  own  person — this 
extreme  weariness  of  emotions,  the  vanity  of  effort, 
the  yearning  for  rest?  Those  striving  with  unreason- 
able forces  know  it  well — the  shipwrecked  castaways 
in  boats,  wanderers  lost  in  a  desert,  men  battling 
against  the  unthinking  might  of  nature  or  the  stupid 
brutality  of  crowds." 

Like  Lord  Jim,  0.  Henry  was  governed  more  by 
impulse  than  by  reason,  more  by  temperament  than 
by  commonsense.  The  sails  ruled  the  rudder  in  his 
disposition,  not  the  rudder  the  sails.     Wlien  he  changed 

145 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

trains  at  Hempstead  it  was  not  cowardice  that  moti- 
vated his  action.  It  was  the  lure  of  peace  and  quiet 
under  Honduran  skies,  the  call  of  a  new  start  in  life, 
the  challenge  of  a  novel  and  romantic  career.  The 
same  faculties  that  were  to  plot  his  stories  were  now 
plotting  this  futile  jaunt  to  Central  America.  The 
vision  swept  him  along  till,  like  Lord  Jim,  he  had  time 
to  reflect  and  still  longer  time  to  regret. 

The  jury  rendered  its  verdict  of  guilty  on  February 
17,  1898,  and  on  March  25,  0.  Henry  was  sentenced 
to  imprisonment  in  the  Ohio  Penitentiary  at  Columbus 
for  the  period  of  five  years.  Immediately  after  being 
sentenced  he  wrote  from  the  jail  in  Austin  the  following 
letter  to  his  mother-in-law,  Mrs.  G.  P.  Roach:  ^ 

Dear  Mrs.  Roach: 

I  feel  very  deeply  the  forbearance  and  long  suffering  kindness 
shown  by  your  note,  and  thank  you  much  for  sending  the  things. 
Right  here  I  want  to  state  solemnly  to  you  that  in  spite  of  the  jury's 
verdict  I  am  absolutely  innocent  of  wrong  doing  in  that  bank  mat- 
ter, except  so  far  as  foolishly  keeping  a  position  that  I  could  not 
successfully  fill.  Any  intelligent  person  who  heard  the  evidence 
presented  knows  that  I  should  have  been  acquitted.  After  I 
saw  the  jury  I  had  very  little  hopes  of  their  understanding  enough 
of  the  technical  matters  presented  to  be  fair.  I  naturally  am 
crushed  by  the  result,  but  it  is  not  on  my  own  account.  I  care 
not  so  much  for  the  opinion  of  the  general  public,  but  I  w^ould 
have  a  few  of  my  friends  still  believe  that  there  Is  some  good  in  me. 

O.  Henry  entered  the  penitentiary  on  April  25,  1898, 
and  came  out  on  July  24,  1901.  On  account  of  good 
146 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

behaviour  his  term  of  confinement  was  reduced  from 
five  years  to  three  years  and  three  months.  There 
was  not  a  demerit  against  him. 

When  O.  Henry  passed  within  the  walls  of  the  Ohio 
prison  he  was  asked:  "What  is  your  occupation.?" 
"I  am  a  newspaper  reporter,"  he  replied.  There  was 
little  opportunity  for  that  profession  in  that  place, 
but  the  next  question  may  be  said  to  have  saved  his 
life:  "What  else  can  you  do?"  "I  am  a  registered 
pharmacist,"  was  the  reply,  almost  as  an  afterthought. 
The  profession  which  he  loathed  in  Greensboro  because 
it  meant  confinement  was  now,  strangely  enough, 
to  prove  the  stepping-stone  to  comparative  freedom. 
His  career  as  a  drug  clerk  in  the  prison,  his  fidelity  to 
duty,  the  new  friendships  formed,  the  opportunity 
afforded  him  to  write,  and  his  quick  assimilation  of 
short  story  material  from  the  life  about  him  are  best 
set  forth  in  the  testimony  of  those  who  knew  him  dur- 
ing these  years  of  seeming  eclipse. 

Dr.  John  M.  Thomas  was  then  chief  physician  at 
the  prison.  His  letter  is  especially  interesting  for 
the  light  that  it  throws  on  the  origin  of  the  stories 
contained  in  "The  Gentle  Grafter": 

Druggists  were  scarce  and  I  felt  I  was  fortunate  in  securing  the 
services  of  Sydney  Porter,  for  he  was  a  registered  pharmacist 
and  unusually  competent.  In  fact,  he  could  do  anything  in  the 
drug  Une.     Previous  to  his  banking  career  in  Texas  he  had  worked 

147 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

in  a  drug  store  in  North  Carolina,  so  he  told  me.  While  Porter 
was  drug  clerk  Jimmie  Consedine,  one  time  proprietor  of  the  old 
hotel  Metropole  in  New  York,  was  a  muse.  Consedine  spent  all 
his  time  painting.  Out  of  this  came  a  falling  out  with  O.  Henry. 
Consedine  painted  a  cow  with  its  tail  touching  the  ground.  Porter 
gave  a  Texas  cowman's  explanation  of  the  absurdity  of  such  a 
thing  and  won  Consedine's  undying  hatred. 

After  serving  some  time  as  drug  clerk  0.  Henry  came  to  me  and 
said:  "I  have  never  asked  a  favor  of  you  before  but  there  is  one 
I  should  like  to  ask  now.  I  can  be  private  secretary  to  the  steward 
outside  [meaning  that  he  would  be  outside  the  walls  and  trusted]. 
It  depends  on  your  recommendation."  I  asked  him  if  he  wanted 
to  go.  When  he  said  he  did,  I  called  up  the  steward,  Mr.  C.  N. 
Wilcox,  and  in  twenty  minutes  O.  Henry  was  outside. 

He  did  not  associate  very  much  with  any  of  the  other  inmates 
of  the  prison  except  the  western  outlaws.  Very  few  of  the  officers 
or  attendants  at  the  prison  ever  saw  him.  Most  convicts  would 
tell  me  frankly  how  they  got  into  jail.  They  did  not  seem  to 
suffer  much  from  mortification.  O.  Henry,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  very  much  weighed  down  by  his  imprisonment.  In  my  experi- 
ence of  handling  over  ten  thousand  prisoners  in  the  eight  years  I 
was  physician  at  the  prison,  I  have  never  known  a  man  who  was 
so  deeply  humiliated  by  his  prison  experience  as  0.  Henry.  He 
was  a  model  prisoner,  willing,  obedient,  faithful.  His  record  is 
clear  in  every  respect. 

It  was  very  seldom  that  he  mentioned  his  imprisonment  or  in 
any  way  discussed  the  subject.  One  time  we  had  a  little  misunder- 
standing about  some  alcohol  which  was  disappearing  too  rapidly 
for  the  ordinary  uses  to  which  it  was  put.  I  requested  that  he 
wait  for  me  one  morning  so  that  I  could  find  out  how  much  alcohol 
he  was  using  in  his  night  rounds,  and  after  asking  him  a  few 
questions  he  became  excited  when  he  thought  I  might  be  suspicion- 
ing  him.  "I  am  not  a  thief,"  he  said,  "and  I  never  stole  a  thing 
in  my  life.  I  was  sent  here  for  embezzling  bank  funds,  not  one 
cent  of  which  I  ever  got.  Some  one  else  got  it  all,  and  I  am 
doing  time  for  it." 
148 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

You  can  tell  when  a  prisoner  is  lying  as  well  as  you  can  in  the 
case  of  anybody  else.  I  believed  O.  Henry  implicitly.  I  soon 
discovered  that  he  was  not  the  offender  in  the  matter  of  the  alcohol. 
But  the  question  disturbed  him  and  he  asked  me  once  or  twice 
afterward  if  I  really  thought  that  he  ever  stole  anything. 

Once  in  a  long  while  he  would  talk  about  his  supposed  crime 
and  the  great  mistake  he  made  in  going  to  Central  America  as 
soon  as  there  was  any  suspicion  cast  on  him.  When  he  disappeared 
suspicion  became  conviction.  After  his  return  from  Central 
America,  when  he  was  tried,  he  never  told  anything  that  would 
clear  himself.  While  he  was  in  Central  America  he  met  Al  Jen- 
nings who  was  likewise  a  fugitive  from  justice.  After  they  re- 
turned to  the  States  they  renewed  their  friendship  at  the  prison, 
where  both  eventually  landed.  Jennings  was  also  one  of  the 
trusted  prisoners  and  in  the  afternoon  they  would  often  come  into 
my  office  and  tell  stories. 

O.  Henry  liked  the  western  prisoners,  those  from  Arizona,  Texas, 
and  Indian  Territory,  and  he  got  stories  from  them  all  and  re- 
told them  in  the  office.  Since  reading  his  books  I  recognize  many 
of  the  stories  I  heard  there.  As  I  mentioned  before,  he  was  an 
unusually  good  pharmacist  and  for  this  reason  was  permitted  to 
look  after  the  minor  ills  of  the  prisoners  at  night.  He  would 
spend  two  or  three  hours  on  the  range  or  tiers  of  cells  every  night 
and  knew  most  of  the  prisoners  and  their  life  stories. 

"The  Gentle  Grafter"  portrays  the  stories  told  him  on  his  night 
rounds.  I  remember  having  heard  him  recount  many  of  them. 
He  wrote  quite  a  number  of  short  stories  while  in  prison  and  it 
was  a  frequent  thing  for  me  to  find  a  story  written  on  scrap  paper 
on  my  desk  in  the  morning,  with  a  note  telling  me  to  read  it  before 
he  sent  it  out.  We  would  often  joke  about  the  price  the  story 
would  bring,  anything  from  twenty-five  to  fifty  dollars.  He  wrote 
them  at  night  in  from  one  to  three  hours,  he  told  me. 

The  night  doctor  at  the  penitentiary  was  Dr.  George 
W.  Williard.     He  also  became  a  friend  and  admirer  of 

149 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

O.  Henry  and  was  the  first  to  recognize  the  original  of 
Jimmy  Valentine,  the  leading  character  in  "A  Retrieved 
Reformation."  Dr.  Williard  contributes  the  following 
reminiscences : 


He  was  the  last  man  in  the  world  you  would  ever  pick  for  a 
crook.  Toward  every  one  he  was  quiet,  reserved,  almost  taciturn. 
He  seldom  spoke  unless  in  answer.  He  never  told  me  of  his  hopes, 
his  aims,  his  family,  his  crime,  his  views  of  life,  his  writing,  in 
fact,  he  spoke  of  little  save  the  details  of  his  pharmaceutical  work 
in  which  he  was  exceptionally  careful  and  eflScient.  The  chief 
means  by  which  I  judged  his  character  was  by  the  way  he  acted 
and  by  one  or  two  little  incidents  which  brought  out  the  man's 
courage  and  faithfulness. 

I  respected  him  for  his  strict  attention  to  business,  his  blameless 
conduct,  and  his  refusal  to  mix  in  the  affairs  of  other  prisoners. 
He  seemed  to  like  me  personally  because  I  did  not  ask  him  per- 
sonal questions  and  because  I  showed  that  I  felt  as  one  intelligent 
man  must  feel  toward  another  under  such  circumstances.  So 
we  grew  to  be  friends. 

He  was  as  careful  and  conscientious  as  if  the  drug  store  at  the 
prison  had  been  his  own  property.  His  hours  were  from  six  in 
the  evening  to  six  in  the  morning.  Often  I  left  at  midnight  with 
Porter  in  charge  and  I  knew  things  would  run  as  regularly  and 
effectively  until  morning  as  if  I  had  remained.  Porter  was  almost 
as  free  from  prison  life  as  any  one  on  the  outside.  He  received  all 
the  magazines  and  did  lots  of  reading.  He  did  not  sleep  in  a 
cell  but  on  a  cot  in  the  hospital  during  the  day  time.  His  ability 
and  conduct  were  such  that,  once  he  had  demonstrated  them, 
there  was  never  any  danger  that  he  would  have  to  eat  and  sleep 
and  work  in  the  shops  with  other  prisoners. 

Convicts  who  were  ill  or  who  claimed  to  be  ill  would  be  brought 
into  the  hospital  in  charge  of  a  guard  and,  ranging  themselves 
along  the  front  of  the  drug  counter,  would  be  given  medicines  by 
150 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

the  drug  clerk  according  to  my  instructions.  It  was  part  of 
Porter's  duties  to  know  a  couple  of  hundred  drugs  by  number  as 
well  as  by  name  and  to  be  able  to  hand  them  out  without  mistake 
quickly.  Constant  desire  of  prisoners  to  escape  work  by  feigning 
illness  necessitated  the  physician  and  his  clerk  being  always  on 
their  guard  against  shams.  Often  some  violent  convict,  when 
refused  medicine,  would  rebel. 

One  night  a  huge  negro  to  whom  I  refused  a  drug  became  abu- 
sive. The  guard  who  had  brought  him  in  had  stepped  away  for  a 
moment  and  the  prisoner  directed  at  me  a  fearful  torrent  of  pro- 
fanity. I  was  looking  around  for  the  guard  when  Sydney  Porter, 
my  drug  clerk,  went  over  his  counter  like  a  panther.  All  of  his 
hundred  and  seventy  or  eighty  pounds  were  behind  the  blow  he 
sent  into  the  negro's  jaw.  The  negro  came  down  on  the  floor 
like  a  ton  of  brick.  Instantly  Porter  was  behind  his  counter 
again.     He  did  not  utter  a  word. 

Another  time  a  certain  piece  of  equipment  was  stolen  from  the 
penitentiary  hospital.  There  had  been  a  good  deal  of  stealing 
going  on  and  I  was  responsible  when  it  happened  during  my 
"trick."  I  mentioned  this  to  Porter  and  he  gave  me  the  name  of 
a  certain  official  of  the  prison  who,  he  said,  had  stolen  the  property. 
I  told  the  warden  who  had  taken  the  property  and  said  it  would 
have  to  come  back  at  once.  In  twelve  hours  it  was  back.  Porter 
said  in  his  quiet  way:  "Well,  I  see  you  got  in  your  work."  It 
was  the  only  time  he  ever  told  on  any  one  and  he  did  it  merely  out 
of  loyalty  to  me.  Although  nearly  every  drug  clerk  at  the  prison 
was  at  some  time  or  other  guilty  of  petty  trafficking  in  drugs 
or  whisky,  Porter  was  always  above  reproach.  He  always  had 
the  keys  to  the  whisky  cabinet,  yet  I  never  heard  of  his  taking  a 
drink. 

The  moment  I  read  O.  Henry's  description  and  character  de- 
lineation of  Jimmy  Valentine  in  "A  Retrieved  Reformation,"  I 
said,  "That's  Jimmy  Connors  through  and  through."  Connors 
was  in  for  blowing  a  postoffice  safe.  He  was  day  drug  clerk  in 
the  prison  hospital  at  the  same  time  Porter  was  night  clerk.  The 
men  were  friendly  and  often,  early  in  the  evening,  before  Connors 

151 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

went  to  bed,  he  would  come  and  talk  to  Porter  and  tell  him  of  his 
experiences. 

Although  Connors  admitted  himself  guilty  of  many  other  jobs 
he  claimed  not  to  be  guilty  of  the  one  for  which  he  was  serving 
time.  Another  man  who  resembled  Connors  had  blown  a  safe 
and  Connors  was  arrested  and  sent  to  prison  for  it.  Because  of 
fear  of  implicating  himself  in  other  jobs  of  which  he  was  guilty, 
he  said,  he  never  told  on  the  other  man  but  went  to  prison  innocent. 
This  statement  was  borne  out  early  in  his  term  in  the  penitentiary 
by  the  arrival  of  the  sheriff  who  had  sent  him  up  and  who,  in  the 
meantime,  had  arrested  the  real  culprit  and  secured  from  him  a 
confession.  To  right  his  wrong  the  sheriff  went  to  Washington, 
but  the  inspectors  knew  Jimmy  Connors  and  said  he  doubtless 
was  guilty  of  some  other  jobs  and  had  best  stay  in  prison  for  safe- 
keeping. He  did  stay,  giving  O.  Henry  the  chance  to  meet  him 
and  find  inspiration  for  "A  Retrieved  Reformation." 

Porter  never  said  a  word  to  me  about  his  own  crime,  but  another 
man  once  told  me  that  Porter  had  told  him  that  he  had  been 
"railroaded"  to  prison,  so  I  think  that  he  secretly  held  himseK 
unjustly  dealt  with.  The  fact  that  he  and  Jimmy  Connors 
agreed  on  this  point  in  their  respective  cases  doubtless  drew  them 
together. 

Poor  Jimmy!  He  never  lived  to  try  any  sort  of  reformation 
on  the  outside.  He  died  of  kidney  trouble  in  the  penitentiary 
hospital,  May  19,  1902,  which  was  after  Porter  left  and  before 
Jimmy  Valentine  became  famous  in  story,  play,  and  song.  He 
was  a  wonderful  chemist  and  I  still,  in  my  daily  practice,  use  one 
formula  he  gave  me.  It  is  not  saying  too  much,  I  am  sure,  to 
state  that  the  recent  craze  for  "crook"  plays  in  the  theatrical 
world  may  be  traced  directly  to  this  dead  prisoner,  for  from  him 
O.  Henry  drew  the  character  which  made  the  story  famous,  and 
from  the  story  came  the  first  "crook"  play  which  won  wide  suc- 
cess, leading  the  way  to  the  production  of  many  similar  plays. 
You  would  recognize  instantly,  if  you  knew  customs  and  con- 
ditions, that  the  prison  atmosphere  at  the  beginning  of  the  story 
was  gathered  bodily  from  Ohio  penitentiary  life  as  Porter  knew  it. 
152 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

Mr.  J.  B.  Rumer,  a  night  guard  at  the  penitentiary, 
was  thrown  with  O.  Henry  during  the  latter's  working 
hours,  from  midnight  till  dawn.  There  was  little  con- 
versation between  them,  O.  Henry  being  absorbed  in 
his  stories.     Mr.  Rumer  says: 

After  most  of  his  work  was  finished  and  we  had  eaten  our  mid- 
night supper,  he  would  begin  to  write.  He  always  wrote  with 
pen  and  ink  and  would  often  work  for  two  hours  continuously 
without  rising.  He  seemed  oblivious  to  the  world  of  sleeping 
convicts  about  him,  hearing  not  even  the  occasional  sigh  or  groan 
from  the  beds  which  were  stretched  before  him  in  the  hospital 
ward  or  the  tramp  of  the  passing  guards.  After  he  had  written 
for  perhaps  two  hours  he  would  rise,  make  a  round  of  the  hospital, 
and  then  come  back  to  his  work  again.  He  got  checks  at  different 
times  and  once  told  me  that  he  had  only  two  stories  rejected  while 
he  was  in  prison. 

Another  side  of  O.  Henry  impressed  Alexander 
Hobbs,  a  coloured  prisoner  who  acted  as  valet  to  one 
of  the  physicians.  Hobbs  was  afterward  the  political 
boss  of  the  coloured  voters  of  Columbus: 

Mr.  Porter  was  from  the  South  and  he  always  called  colored 
men  niggers.  I  never  got  fresh  with  him.  I  treated  him  with 
respect  but  let  him  alone.  One  day  he  asked  me  about  it  and  I 
said:  "Mr.  Porter,  I  know  you  all  don't  want  nothing  to  do  with 
no  black  folks."  He  laughed  and  after  that  we  always  got  along 
fine. 

Mr.  Porter  was  a  nurse  over  in  the  hospital  and  he  hadn't  been 
in  long  when  by  mistake  one  day  Warden  E.  G.  Coffin  was  given 
an  overdose  of  Fowler's  solution  of  arsenic.  The  right  antidote 
couldn't  be  found  and  the  day  physician,  the  nurses,  and  all  the 

153 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

prison  oflScers  were  crowded  around  the  bed  on  which  the  warden 
was  lying,  in  great  fright.  Everybody  was  panic-stricken  and  it 
looked  like  the  warden,  who  was  unconscious,  was  going  to  die 
with  doctors  and  a  drug  store  right  there  beside  him. 

Then  Mr.  Porter,  who  had  been  upstairs  nursing  a  sick  prisoner, 
came  walking  down.  He  had  learned  what  was  the  matter.  I 
can  just  see  him  yet,  as  he  came  down  them  stairs,  as  quiet  and 
composed  as  a  free  citizen  out  for  a  walk.  "  Be  quiet,  gentlemen," 
he  says,  and  walks  over  to  the  drug  store  and  takes  charge,  just  as 
easy  as  if  he  owned  the  prison.  Then  he  mixes  a  little  drink,  just 
like  mixing  a  soda  water.  In  an  hour  the  warden  was  out  of 
danger  and  the  next  day  Mr.  Porter  was  made  night  drug  clerk. 

O.  Henry's  letters  from  prison  tell  their  own  story. 
The  life  was  intolerable  at  first  but  he  lived  in  constant 
expectation  of  a  pardon.  When  this  hope  failed  he 
turned  all  the  more  whole-heartedly  to  story  writing. 
His  appointment  by  Doctor  Thomas,  in  October,  1900, 
to  a  position  in  the  steward's  office  (see  page  148)  was 
evidently  a  turning-point  in  his  life  and  was  so  recog- 
nized by  him.  It  is  needless  to  say,  as  the  letters  show, 
that  Margaret  did  not  know  where  her  father  was. 
From  the  moment  of  his  sentence  O.  Henry's  chief 
concern  was  that  she  should  never  know.  And  she 
did  not  know  till  he  told  her  face  to  face. 

May  18,  1898. 
Dear  Mr.  Roach: 

I  wrote  you  about  ten  days  ago  a  letter  which  I  sent  through  the 
office  of  this  place.  I  could  not  say  in  it  what  I  wanted  to  as  the 
letters  are  all  read  here  and  they  are  very  strict  about  what  is  in 
them.  I  now  have  the  opportunity  to  send  an  occasional  letter 
154 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

by  a  private  way,  and  to  receive  them  by  the  same  means.     I  want 
to  give  you  some  idea  of  the  condition  of  things  here. 

I  accidentally  fell  into  a  place  on  the  day  I  arrived  that  is  a  light 
one  in  comparison  with  others.  I  am  the  night  druggist  in  the 
hospital,  and  as  far  as  work  is  concerned  it  is  light  enough,  and 
all  the  men  stationed  in  the  hospital  live  a  hundred  per  cent, 
better  than  the  rest  of  the  2,500  men  here.  There  are  four  doctors 
and  about  twenty-five  other  men  in  the  hospital  force.  The 
hospital  is  a  separate  building  and  is  one  of  the  finest  equipped 
institutions  in  the  country.  It  is  large  and  finely  finished  and  has 
every  apphance  of  medicine  and  surgery. 

We  men  who  are  on  the  hospital  detail  fare  very  well  compara- 
tively. We  have  good  food  well  cooked  and  in  unlimited  abund- 
ance, and  large  clean  sleeping  apartments.  We  go  about  where 
we  please  over  the  place,  and  are  not  bound  down  by  strict  rules 
as  the  others  are.  I  go  on  duty  at  five  o'clock  p.  m.  and  off  at  five 
A.  M.  The  work  is  about  the  same  as  in  any  drug  store,  filhng 
prescriptions,  etc.  and  is  pretty  hvely  up  to  about  ten  o'clock. 
At  seven  p.  m.  I  take  a  medicine  case  and  go  the  rounds  with  the 
night  physician  to  see  the  ones  over  in  the  main  building  who 
have  become  sick  during  the  day. 

The  doctor  goes  to  bed  about  ten  o'clock  and  from  then  on 
during  the  night  I  prescribe  for  the  patients  myseK  and  go  out 
and  attend  calls  that  come  in.  If  I  find  any  one  seriously  ill 
I  have  them  brought  to  the  hospital  and  attended  to  by  the  doctor. 
I  never  imagined  human  life  was  held  as  cheap  as  it  is  here.  The 
men  are  regarded  as  animals  without  soul  or  feeling.  They  carry 
on  all  kinds  of  work  here;  there  are  foundries  and  all  kinds  of  manu- 
facturing done,  and  everybody  works  and  works  twice  as  hard  as 
men  in  the  same  employment  outside  do.  They  work  thirteen 
hours  a  day  and  each  man  must  do  a  certain  amount  or  be  punished. 
Some  few  strong  ones  stand  the  work,  but  it  is  simply  slow  death 
to  the  majority.  If  a  man  gets  sick  and  can't  work  they  take  hira 
into  a  cellar  and  turn  a  powerful  stream  of  water  on  him  from  a 
hose  that  knocks  the  breath  out  of  him.  Then  a  doctor  revives 
him  and  they  hang  him  up  by  his  hands  with  his  feet  off  the  floor 

155 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

for  an  hour  or  two.  This  generally  makes  him  go  to  work  again, 
and  when  he  gives  out  and  can't  stand  up  they  bring  him  on  a 
stretcher  to  the  hospital  to  get  well  or  die  as  the  case  may  be. 

The  hospital  wards  have  from  one  hundred  to  two  hundred 
patients  in  them  all  the  time.  They  have  all  kinds  of  diseases — 
at  present  typhus  fever  and  measles  are  the  fashion.  Consump- 
tion here  is  more  common  than  bad  colds  are  at  home.  There 
are  about  thirty  hopeless  cases  of  it  in  the  hospital  just  now  and 
nearly  all  the  nurses  and  attendants  are  contracting  it.  There 
are  hundreds  of  other  cases  of  it  among  the  men  who  are  working 
in  the  shops  and  foundries.  Twice  a  day  they  have  a  sick  call 
at  the  hospital,  and  from  two  hundred  to  three  hundred  men  are 
marched  in  each  day  suflFering  from  various  disorders.  They 
march  in  single  file  past  the  doctor  and  he  prescribes  for  each 
one  "on  the  fly."  The  procession  passes  the  drug  counter  and 
the  medicines  are  handed  out  to  each  one  as  they  march  without 
stopping  the  line. 

I  have  tried  to  reconcile  myself  to  remaining  here  for  a  time, 
but  am  about  at  the  end  of  my  endurance.  There  is  absolutely 
not  one  thing  in  life  at  present  or  in  prospect  that  makes  it  of 
value.  I  have  decided  to  wait  until  the  New  Orleans  court  de- 
cides the  appeal,  provided  it  is  heard  within  a  reasonable  time, 
and  see  what  chance  there  comes  out  of  it. 

I  can  stand  any  kind  of  hardships  or  privations  on  the  outside, 
but  I  am  utterly  unable  to  continue  the  life  I  lead  here.  I  know 
all  the  arguments  that  could  be  advanced  as  to  why  I  should  en- 
dure it,  but  I  have  reached  the  limit  of  endurance.  It  will  be 
better  for  every  one  else  and  a  thousand  times  better  for  me  to 
end  the  trouble  instead  of  dragging  it  out  longer. 

July  8,  1898. 
Deak  Mrs.  R. 

I  have  little  to  say  about  myself,  except  that  as  far  as  physical 
comfort  goes  I  am  as  well  situated  as  any  one  here.  I  attend  to 
my  business  (that  of  night  druggist)  and  no  one  interferes  with  me, 
as  the  doctor  leaves  everything  in  my  hands  at  night.  I  attend 
156 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

to  sick  calls  and  administer  whatever  I  think  proper  unless  it 
happens  to  be  a  severe  case  and  then  I  wake  up  the  doctor.  I 
am  treated  with  plentiful  consideration  by  all  the  officials,  have  a 
large,  airy,  clean  sleeping  room  and  the  range  of  the  whole  place, 
and  big,  well  kept  yard  full  of  trees,  flowers,  and  grass.  The 
hospital  here  is  a  fine  new  building,  fully  as  large  as  the  City  Hall 
in  Austin,  and  the  office  and  drug  store  is  as  fine  and  up-to-date 
as  a  first  class  hotel.  I  have  my  desk  and  office  chair  inside  the 
drug  store  railing,  gas  fights,  all  kinds  of  books,  the  latest  novels, 
etc.  brought  in  every  day  or  two,  three  or  four  daily  papers,  and 
good  meals,  sent  down  the  dumb  waiter  from  the  kitchen  at  ten 
o'clock  and  three  p.  m.  There  are  five  wards  in  the  hospital  and 
they  generally  have  from  fifty  to  two  hundred  patients  in  them  all 

the  time. 

The  guards  bring  in  men  who  are  sick  at  all  hours  of  the  night 
to  the  hospital  which  is  detached  some  one  hundred  yards  from  the 
main  buildings.     I  have  gotten  quite  expert  at  practicing  medicine. 
It's  a  melancholy  place,  however— misery  and  death  and  all  kinds 
of  suffering  around  one  all  the  time.     We  sometimes  have  a  death 
every  night  for  a  week  or  so.     Very  little  time  is  wasted  on  such  an 
occasion.     One  of  the  nurses  will  come  from  a  ward  and  say— 
"Weil,  So  and  So  has  croaked."     Ten  minutes  later  they  tramp 
out  with  So  and  So  on  a  stretcher  and  take  him  to  the  dead  house. 
n  he  has  no  friends  to  claim  him— which  is  generally  the  case— 
the  next  day  the  doctors  have  a  dissecting  bee  and  that  ends  it. 
Suicides  are  as  common  as  picnics  here.     Every  few  nights  the 
doctor  and  I  have  to  strike  out  at  a  trot  to  see  some  unfortunate 
who  has  tried  to  get  rid  of  his  troubles.     They  cut  their  throats 
and  hang  themselves  and  stop  up  their  cells  and  turn  the  gas  on 
and  try  all  kinds  of  ways.     Most  of  them  plan  it  well  enough  to 
succeed.     Night  before  last  a  professional  pugilist  went  crazy  in 
his  cell  and  the  doctor  and  I,  of  course,  were  sent  for.     The  man 
was  in  good  training  and  it  took  eight  of  us  to  tie  him.  ^   Seven 
held  him  down  while  the  doctor  climbed  on  top  and  got  his  hypo- 
dermic syringe  into  him.     These  little  things  are  our  only  amuse- 
ments.    I  often  get  as  blue  as  any  one  can  get  and  I  feel  as  thor- 

157 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

oughly  miserable  as  it  is  possible  to  feel,  but  I  consider  that 
my  futm-e  efforts  belong  to  others  and  I  have  no  right  to  give  way 
to  my  own  troubles  and  feelings. 

Hello,  Margaret: 

Don't  you  remember  me?  I'm  a  Brownie,  and  my  name  is 
Aldibirontiphostiphornikophokos.  If  you  see  a  star  shoot  and 
say  my  name  seventeen  times  before  it  goes  out,  you  will  find  a 
diamond  ring  in  the  track  of  the  first  blue  cow's  foot  you  see  go 
down  the  road  in  a  snowstorm  while  the  red  roses  are  blooming 
on  the  tomato  vines.  Try  it  some  time.  I  know  all  about  Anna 
and  Arthur  Dudley,  but  they  don't  see  me.  I  was  riding  by  on 
a  squirrel  the  other  day  and  saw  you  and  Arthur  Dudley  give 
some  fruit  to  some  trainmen.  Anna  wouldn't  come  out.  Well 
good-bye,  I've  got  to  take  a  ride  on  a  grasshopper.  I'll  just  sign 
my  first  letter—    "A". 

July  8,  1898. 
My  Dear  Margaret  : 

You  don't  know  how  glad  I  was  to  get  your  nice  little  letter 
to-day.  I  am  so  sorry  I  couldn't  come  to  tell  you  good-bye  when 
I  left  Austin.     You  know  I  would  have  done  so  if  I  could  have. 

Well,  I  think  it's  a  shame  some  men  folks  have  to  go  away  from 
home  to  work  and  stay  away  so  long — don't  you?  But  I  tell  you 
what's  a  fact.  When  I  come  home  next  time  I'm  going  to  stay 
there.  You  bet  your  boots  I'm  getting  tired  of  staying  away  so 
long. 

I'm  so  glad  you  and  Munny  are  going  to  Nashville.  I  know 
you'll  have  a  fine  ride  on  the  cars  and  a  good  time  when  you  get 
to  Uncle  Bud's.  Now  you  must  have  just  the  finest  time  you  can 
with  Anna  and  the  boys  and  tumble  around  in  the  woods  and  go 
fishing  and  have  lots  of  fun.  Now,  Margaret,  don't  you  worry 
any  about  me,  for  I'm  well  and  fat  as  a  pig  and  I'll  have  to  be  away 
from  home  a  while  yet  and  while  I'm  away  you  can  just  run  up  to 
Nashville  and  see  the  folks  there. 
158 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

And  not  long  after  you  come  back  home  I'll  be  ready  to  come 
And  I  won't  ever  have  to  leave  again. 

So  you  be  just  as  happy  as  you  can,  and  it  won't  be  long  till 
we'll  be  reading  Uncle  Remus  again  of  nights. 

I'll  see  if  I  can  find  another  one  of  Uncle  Remus's  books  when  I 
come  back.  You  didn't  tell  me  in  your  letter  about  your  going 
to  Nashville.  When  you  get  there  you  must  write  me  a  long 
letter  and  tell  me  what  you  saw  on  the  cars  and  how  you  like 
Uncle  Bud's  stock  farm. 

When  you  get  there  I'll  write  you  a  letter  every  week,  for  you 
will  be  much  nearer  to  the  town  I  am  in  than  Austin  is. 

I  do  hope  you  will  have  a  nice  visit  and  a  good  time.  Look  out 
pretty  soon  for  another  letter  from  me. 

I  think  about  you  every  day  and  wonder  what  you  are  doing. 
Well,  I  will  see  you  again  before  very  long. 

Your  loving 

Papa. 

August  16,  1898. 
My  Dear  Maegaret: 

I  got  your  letter  yesterday,  and  was  mighty  glad  to  hear  from 
you.  I  think  you  must  have  forgotten  where  you  were  when  you 
wrote  it,  for  you  wrote  "Austin,  Texas"  at  the  top  of  it.  Did  you 
forget  you  had  gone  to  Tennessee? 

The  reason  why  I  have  not  written  you  a  letter  in  so  long  is 
that  I  didn't  know  the  name  of  the  postoffice  where  you  and 
Munny  were  going  until  I  got  her  letter  and  yours  yesterday. 
Now  that  I  know  how  to  write  I  will  write  you  a  letter  every 
Sunday  and  you  will  know  just  when  you  are  going  to  get  one 
every  week.     Are  you  having  a  nice  time  at  Aunt  Lilly's.? 

Munny  tells  me  you  are  fat  and  sassy  and  I  am  glad  to  hear  it. 
You  always  said  you  wanted  to  be  on  a  farm.  You  must  write 
and  tell  me  next  time  what  kind  of  times  you  have  and  what  you 
do  to  have  fun. 

I'd  have  liked  to  see  the  two  fish  you  caught.  Guess  they  were 
most  as  long  as  your  little  finger,  weren't  they?    You  must  make 

159 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

Munny  keep  you  up  there  till  the  hot  weather  is  over  before  you 
go  back  to  Austin.  I  want  you  to  have  as  good  times  as  you  can, 
and  get  well  and  strong  and  big  but  don't  get  as  big  as  Munny 
because  I'm  afraid  you'd  lick  me  when  I  come  home. 

Did  you  find  Dudley  and  Arthur  much  bigger  than  they  were 
when  they  were  in  Austin?  I  guess  Anna  is  almost  grown  now — 
or  thinks  she  is — which  amounts  to  about  the  same  thing. 

April  5,  1899. 
Dear  Mrs.  R.  : 

One  thing  I  am  sorry  for  is  that  we  are  about  to  lose  Dr.  Reinert, 
our  night  physician.  He  has  been  my  best  friend  and  is  a  thor- 
oughly good  man  in  every  way.  He  will  resign  his  place  in  about 
a  month  to  accept  a  better  position  as  Police  Surgeon.  You  can 
still  address  in  his  care  until  May  1st,  and  in  the  meantime  I  will 
make  other  arrangements.  I  believe,  though,  that  I  will  be  able 
to  hold  my  own  after  he  leaves,  as  I  have  the  confidence  and  good 
will  of  all  the  officers.  Still  we  never  can  tell  here,  as  everything 
is  run  on  political  and  financial  lines.  Of  course,  all  the  easy 
positions  are  greatly  in  demand,  and  every  variety  of  wire-pulling 
and  scheming  is  used  to  secure  them.  As  much  as  a  thousand 
dollars  have  been  offered  by  men  here  for  such  places  as  the  one 
I  hold,  and  as  I  hold  mine  simply  on  my  own  merits  I  have  to  be 
on  the  lookout  all  the  time  against  undermining. 

I  have  abundant  leisure  time  at  night  and  I  have  been  putting- 
it  to  best  advantage  studying  and  accumulating  manuscript 
to  use  later. 

February  14,  1900. 
Dear  Margaret  : 

It  has  been  quite  a  long  time  since  I  heard  from  you.  I  got  a 
letter  from  you  in  the  last  century,  and  a  letter  once  every  hundred 
years  is  not  very  often.  I  have  been  waiting  from  day  to  day, 
putting  off  writing  to  you,  as  I  have  been  expecting  to  have 
something  to  send  you,  but  it  hasn't  come  yet,  and  I  thought 
I  would  write  anyhow. 
160 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

I  am  pretty  certain  I  will  have  it  in  three  or  four  days,  and 
then  I  will  write  to  you  again  and  send  it  to  you. 

I  hope  your  watch  runs  all  right.  When  you  write  again  be 
sure  and  look  at  it  and  tell  me  what  time  it  is,  so  I  won't  have 
to  get  up  and  look  at  the  clock. 

With  much  love. 

Papa. 

May  17,  1900. 
Dear  Margaret  : 

It  has  been  so  long  since  I  heard  from  you  that  I'm  getting 
real  anxious  to  know  what  is  the  matter.  Whenever  you  don't 
answer  my  letters  I  am  afraid  you  are  sick,  so  please  write  right 
away  when  you  get  this.  Tell  me  something  about  Pittsburg  and 
what  you  have  seen  of  it.  Have  they  any  nice  parks  where  you 
can  go  or  is  it  all  made  of  houses  and  bricks?  I  send  you  twenty 
nickels  to  spend  for  anything  you  want. 

Now,  if  you  will  write  me  a  nice  letter  real  soon  I  will  promise 

to  answer  it  the  same  day  and  put  another  dollar  in  it.     I  am  very 

well  and  so  anxious  to  be  with  you  again,  which  I  hope  won't  be 

very  long  now. 

With  much  love,  as  ever 

Papa. 

October  1,  1900. 
Dear  Margaret: 

I  got  your  very  nice,  long  letter  a  good  many  days  ago.  It 
didn't  come  straight  to  me,  but  went  to  a  wrong  address  first.  I 
was  very  glad  indeed  to  hear  from  you,  and  very,  very  sorry  to 
learn  of  your  getting  your  finger  so  badly  hurt.  I  don't  think 
you  were  to  blame  at  all,  as  you  couldn't  know  just  how  that 
villainous  old  "hoss"  was  going  to  bite.  I  do  hope  that  it  will 
heal  up  nicely  and  leave  your  finger  strong.  I  am  learning  to 
play  the  mandolin,  and  we  must  get  you  a  guitar,  and  we  will 
learn  a  lot  of  duets  together  when  I  come  home,  which  will  certainly 
not  be  later  than  next  summer,  and  maybe  earlier. 

I  suppose  you  have  started  to  school  again  some  time  ago.     I 

IGl 


O.  HENHY  BIOGRAPHY 

hope  you  like  to  go,  and  don't  have  to  study  too  hard.  When  one 
grows  up,  a  thing  they  never  regret  is  that  they  went  to  school 
long  enough  to  learn  all  they  could.  It  makes  everything  easier 
for  them,  and  if  they  like  books  and  study  they  can  always  con- 
tent and  amuse  themselves  that  way  even  if  other  people  are  cross 
and  tiresome,  and  the  world  doesn't  go  to  suit  them. 

You  mustn't  think  that  I've  forgotten  somebody's  birthday.  I 
couldn't  find  just  the  thing  I  wanted  to  send,  but  I  know  where 
it  can  be  had,  and  it  will  reach  you  in  a  few  days.  So,  when  it 
comes  you'll  know  it  is  for  a  birthday  remembrance. 

I  think  you  write  the  prettiest  hand  of  any  little  girl  (or  big  one, 
either)  I  ever  knew.  The  letters  you  make  are  as  even  and  regular 
as  printed  ones.  The  next  time  you  write,  tell  me  how  far  you 
have  to  go  to  school  and  whether  you  go  alone  or  not. 

I  am  busy  all  the  time  writing  for  the  papers  and  magazines  all 
over  the  country,  so  I  don't  have  a  chance  to  come  home,  but  I'm 
going  to  try  to  come  this  winter.  If  I  don't  I  will  by  summer  sure, 
and  then  you'll  have  somebody  to  boss  and  make  trot  around  with 
you. 

Write  me  a  letter  whenever  you  have  some  time  to  spare,  for  I 
am  always  glad  and  anxious  to  hear  from  you.  Be  careful  when 
you  are  on  the  streets  not  to  feed  shucks  to  strange  dogs,  or  pat 
snakes  on  the  head  or  shake  hands  with  cats  you  haven't  been 
introduced  to,  or  stroke  the  noses  of  electric  car  horses. 

Hoping  you  are  well  and  your  finger  is  getting  all  right,  I  am, 

with  much  love,  as  ever. 

Papa. 

November  5,  1900. 
Dear  Mrs.  R.  : 

I  send  you  an  Outlook  by  this  mail  with  a  little  story*  of  mine  in  it. 
I  am  much  better  situated  now  for  work  and  am  going  to  put  in  lots 
of  time  in  wn-iting  this  winter. 

*This  was  "Georgia's  Ruling,"  published  in  the  Outlook  of  June  30.  1900.  It  is  an  idyl  of 
devotion,  the  devotion  of  a  father  to  the  memory  of  his  little  daughter.  It  was  so  intimately 
related  to  Dick  Hall  and  so  closely  concerned  with  the  Austin  land  office  that  O.  Henry  for- 
bade its  publication  in  book  form.  It  may  be  found  in  "Whirligigs,"  published  a  few  months 
after  O.  Henry's  death. 

162 


THE  SHADOWED  YEAES 

About  two  weeks  ago  I  was  given  what  I  consider  the  best 
position  connected  with  this  place.     I  am  now  n>  .  he^^^"'^ 
office  keeping  books,  and  am  very  comfortably  situated     The 
offiS  is  entirely  outside  and  separate  from  the  rest  of  the  msUtu^ 
tion.    It  is  on  the  same  street,  but  quite  a  distance  away     I  am 
Ibout  as  near  free  as  possible,     I  don't  have  to  go  near  the  other 
buildings  except  sometimes  when  I  have  business  with  some  of  the 
departinents  inside.     I  sleep  outside  at  the  office  and  am  abo- 
lately  without  supervision  of  any  kind.     I  go  m  and  ou    as  I 
please      At  night  I  take  walks  on  the  streets  or  go  down  to  the 
river  and  walk'  along  the  paths  there.     The  steward's  office  is  a 
two-story    building    containing    general    stores    and    provisions 
There  are  two  handsomely  furnished  office  rooms  with  np-to-da  e 
&ture,s-natural  gas.  electric  lights,  ■phones,  etc      I  have  a  bg 
fine  desk  with  worlds  of  stationery  and  everything  I  need.     We 
have  a  fine  cook  out  here  and  set  a  table  as  good  as  a  good  hotek 
The  steward  and  the  storekeeper-very  agreeable  gentlemen  both 
of  them-leave  about  tour  P.  M.  and  I  am  my  own  boss  till  next 
IX.     In  (act,  I  have  my  duties  and  attend  Jo  Uiem,  and  am 
much  more  independent  than  an  employer  would  be  ,   I  Jake  my 
hat  and  go  out  on  the  street  whenever  I  please.     I  have  a  good 
wt  cot  which  I  rig  up  in  the  office  at  night,  and  altogether  no 
one  could  ask  tor  anything  better  under  the  circumstances. 

"rre'lrroTr  three  more  pictures,  but  they  are  not  very  good 
Mun'y  says  you  are  learning  very  fast  at  school  I'm  sure  you  re 
!„wIo  te  a  very  smart  girl,  and  I  guess  I'd  better  study  a  lot 
'°^  myself  or  you  will  know  more  than  I  will  I  was  reading 
toly  about  a  cat  a  lady  had  that  was  about  the  smartest  caU 
ever  heard  ot.  One  day  the  eat  was  asleep  and  woke  up.  He 
Sd^;  see  his  mistress,  so  he  ran  to  a  -^a-dbox  where  s^^^^^^^^ 
the  hat  she  wore  when  she  went  out,  and  knocked  the  top  ott  to 
ee  alt  was  there.  When  he  found  it  was  there  he  seemed  to  be 
contented  and  lay  down  and  went  to  sleep  agam.    Wasn  t  that 

loo 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

pretty  bright  for  a  cat?     Do  you  think  Nig  would  do  anything 
that  smart? 

You  must  plant  some  seeds  and  have  them  growing  so  you  can 
water  them  as  soon  as  it  gets  warm  enough.  Well,  I'll  write  you 
another  letter  in  a  day  or  two.     So  good-bye  till  then. 

Your  loving 

Papa. 

My  Dear  Margaret  : 

I  ought  to  have  answered  your  last  letter  sooner,  but  I  haven't 
had  a  chance.  It's  getting  mighty  cool  now.  It  won't  be  long 
before  persimmons  are  ripe  in  Tennessee.  I  don't  think  you  ever 
ate  any  persimmons,  did  you?  I  think  persimmon  pudden  (not 
pudding)  is  better  than  cantaloupe  or  watermelon  either.  If  you 
stay  until  they  get  ripe  you  must  get  somebody  to  make  you  one. 

If  it  snows  while  you  are  there  you  must  try  some  fried  snow- 
balls, too.     They  are  mighty  good  with  Jack  Frost  gravy. 

You  must  see  how  big  and  fat  you  can  get  before  you  go  back  to 
Austin. 

When  I  come  home  I  want  to  find  you  big  and  strong  enough  to 
pull  me  all  about  town  on  a  sled  when  we  have  a  snow  storm. 
Won't  that  be  nice?  I  just  thought  I'd  write  this  little  letter  in  a 
hurry  so  the  postman  would  get  it  and  when  I'm  in  a  hurry  I 
never  can  think  of  anything  to  write  about.  You  and  Munny 
must  have  a  good  time,  and  keep  a  good  lookout  and  don't  let 
tramps  or  yellowjackets  catch  you.  I'll  try  to  write  something 
better  next  time.     Write  soon. 

Your  loving 

Papa. 

November  12. 
My  Dear  Margaret: 

Did  you  ever  have  a  pain  right  in  the  middle  of  your  back  be- 
tween your  shoulders?  Well,  I  did  just  then  when  I  wrote  your 
name,  and  I  had  to  stop  a  while  and  grunt  and  twist  around  in  my 
chair  before  I  could  write  any  more.  Guess  I  must  have  caught 
164 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

cold.  I  haven't  had  a  letter  from  you  in  a  long  time.  You  must 
stir  Munny  up  every  week  or  two  and  make  her  send  me  your 
letter.  I  guess  you'd  rather  ride  the  pony  than  write  about  him, 
wouldn't  you?  But  you  know  I'm  always  so  glad  to  get  a  letter 
from  you  even  if  it's  only  a  teentsy  weentsy  one,  so  I'll  know  you 
are  well  and  what  you  are  doing. 

You  don't  want  to  go  to  work  and  forget  your  old  Pop  just 
because  you  don't  see  much  of  him  just  now,  for  he'll  come  in 
mighty  handy  some  day  to  read  Uncle  Remus  to  you  again  and 
make  kites  that  a  cyclone  wouldn't  raise  off  the  ground.  So  write 
soon. 

With  love  as  ever, 

Papa. 

My  Dear  Margaret  : 

I  ought  to  have  answered  your  letter  some  time  ago,  but  you 
know  how  lazy  I  am.  I'm  very  glad  to  hear  you  are  having  a 
good  time,  and  I  wish  I  was  with  you  to  help  you  have  fun.  I 
read  in  the  paper  that  it  is  colder  in  Austin  than  it  has  been  in 
many  years,  and  they've  had  lots  of  snow  there  too.  Do  you 
remember  the  big  snow  we  had  there  once?  I  guess  everybody 
can  get  snow  this  winter  to  fry.  Why  don't  you  send  me  some 
fried  snow  in  a  letter?  Do  you  like  Tennessee  as  well  as  you  did 
Texas?  Tell  me  next  time  you  write.  Well  old  Christmas  is 
about  to  come  round  again.  I  wish  I  could  come  and  light  up 
the  candles  on  the  Christmas  tree  like  we  used  to.  I  wouldn't 
be  surprised  if  you  haven't  gotten  bigger  than  I  am  by  now,  and 
vv^hen  I  come  back  and  don't  want  to  read  Uncle  Remus  of  nights, 
you  can  get  a  stick  and  make  me  do  it.  I  saw  some  new  Uncle 
Remus  books  a  few  days  ago  and  when  I  come  back  I'll  bring  a 
new  one,  and  you'll  say  "thankydoo,  thankydoo."  I'm  getting 
mighty  anxious  to  see  you  again,  and  for  us  to  have  some  more 
fun  like  we  used  to.  I  guess  it  won't  be  much  longer  now  till  I 
do,  and  I  want  to  hear  you  tell  all  about  what  times  you've  had. 
I'll  bet  you  haven't  learned  to  button  your  own  dress  in  the  back 
yet,  have  you? 

165 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

I  hope  you'll  have  a  jolly  Christmas  and  lots  of  fun — Geemlny ! 
don't  I  wish  I  could  eat  Christmas  dinner  with  you !  Well,  I  hope 
it  won't  be  long  till  we  all  get  home  again.  Write  soon  and  don't 
forget  your  loving, 

Papa. 

My  Dear  Margaret  : 

Here  it  is  summertime,  and  the  bees  are  blooming  and  the  flowers 
are  singing  and  the  birds  making  honey,  and  we  haven't  been 
fishing  yet.  Well,  there's  only  one  more  month  till  July,  and  then 
we'll  go,  and  no  mistake.  I  thought  you  would  write  and  tell 
me  about  the  high  water  around  Pittsburg  some  time  ago,  and 
whether  it  came  up  to  where  you  live,  or  not.  And  I  haven't 
heard  a  thing  about  Easter,  and  about  the  rabbits'  eggs — but  I 
suppose  you  have  learned  by  this  time  that  eggs  grow  on  egg  plants 
and  are  not  laid  by  rabbits. 

I  would  like  very  much  to  hear  from  you  oftener;  it  has  been 
more  than  a  month  since  you  wrote.  Write  soon  and  tell  me  how 
you  are,  and  when  school  will  be  out,  for  we  want  plenty  of  holi- 
days in  July  so  we  can  have  a  good  time.  I  am  going  to  send  you 
something  nice  the  last  of  this  week.  What  do  you  guess  it  will 
be? 

Lovingly, 

Papa. 

When  O.  Henry  passed  out  of  the  prison  walls  of 
Columbus,  he  was  a  changed  man.  Something  of  the 
old  buoyancy  and  waggishness  had  gone,  never  to 
return.  He  was  never  again  to  content  himself  with 
random  squibs  or  jests  contributed  to  newspapers  or 
magazines.  Creation  had  taken  the  place  of  mere 
scintillation.  Observation  was  to  be  more  and  more 
fused  with  reflection.  He  was  to  work  from  the  centre 
166 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

out  rather  than  from  the  circumference  in.  The  quest 
of  "What's  around  the  corner"  was  to  be  as  determined 
as  before  but  it  was  to  be  tempered  with  a  consciousness 
of  the  under-side  of  things.  The  hand  that  held  the 
pen  had  known  a  solemnizing  ministry  and  the  eye 
that  guided  it  had  looked  upon  scenes  that  could  not  be 
expunged  from  memory. 

The  old  life  was  to  be  shut  out.  He  had  written 
to  none  of  his  earlier  friends  while  in  prison  and  he 
hoped  they  would  never  know.  The  work  that  he  had 
elected  to  do  could  be  done  in  silence  and  separation  and, 
so  far  as  in  him  lay,  he  would  start  life  over  again  once 
more.  Explanations  would  be  useless.  He  had  his 
secret  and  he  determined  to  keep  it.  He  had  been 
caught  in  the  web  of  things  but  he  had  another  to  live 
for  and  hope  was  strong  and  confidence  still  stronger 
within  him.  If  a  sense  of  pervading  romance  had 
buoyed  him  before  his  days  of  testing,  it  had  not  de- 
serted him  when  he  passed  within  the  shadows.  It  had 
been  not  only  his  pillar  of  cloud  by  day  but  his  pillar  of 
fire  by  night. 

There  are  men,  says  O.  Henry,  in  one  of  his  vivid 
characterizations,  to  whom  life  is  "a  reversible  coat, 
seamy  on  both  sides."  His  had  been  seamy  on  only 
one  side;  the  inner  side  was  still  intact.  The  dream  and 
the  \asion  had  remained  with  him.  He  had  suffered 
much,  but  the  texture  of  life  still  seemed  sound  to  him. 

167 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

There  was  no  sense  of  disillusionment.  No  friend  had 
failed  him;  no  friend  ever  failed  him.  So  far  from 
losing  interest  in  life,  he  was  rather  re-dedicated  to  it. 

Nothing  so  testifies  to  the  innate  nobleness  of  O. 
Henry's  nature  as  the  utter  absence  of  bitterness  in 
his  disposition  after  the  three  years  in  Columbus. 
These  years  had  done  their  work,  but  it  was  constructive, 
not  destructive.  His  charity  was  now  as  boundless  as 
the  air  and  his  sympathy  with  suffering,  especially  when 
the  sufferer  was  seemingly  down  and  out,  as  prompt  and 
instinctive  as  the  glance  of  the  eye.  He  was  talking  to 
a  friend  once  on  the  streets  of  New  York  when  a  beggar 
approached  and  asked  for  help.  O.  Henry  took  a  coin 
from  his  pocket,  shielded  it  from  the  view  of  his  friend, 
and  slipped  it  into  the  beggar's  hand,  saying,  "Here's  a 
dollar.  Don't  bother  us  any  more."  The  man  walked 
a  few  steps  away,  examined  the  coin,  and  seemed  un- 
certain what  to  do.  Then  he  came  slowly  back. 
"Mister,"  he  said,  "you  were  good  to  me  and  I  don't 
want  to  take  advantage  of  you.  You  said  this  was  a 
dollar.  It's  a  twenty-dollar  gold  piece."  O.  Henry 
turned  upon  him  indignantly:  "Don't  you  think  I 
know  what  a  dollar  is.^  I  told  you  not  to  come  back. 
Get  along!"  He  then  continued  his  conversation,  but 
was  plainly  mortified  lest  his  friend  should  have  de- 
tected his  ruse.  A  woman  whom  he  had  helped  over 
many  rough  places  in  New  York  said :  "  His  compassion 
168  - 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

for  suffering  was  infinite.  He  used  to  say  *  I  know  how  it 
is.'  That  was  his  gift.  He  had  a  genius  for  friendship." 
The  first  step  in  putting  the  past  irrevocably  behind 
him  was  to  write  under  an  assumed  name.  The  pen- 
name  of  O.  Henry  may  have  been  thought  of  while  he 
was  in  New  Orleans ;  it  may  have  been  suggested  by  the 
names  found  in  a  New  Orleans  daily,  the  Times- 
Democrat  or  the  Picayune.  O.  Henry,  I  believe,  is 
reported  to  have  said  as  much.  But  the  evidence  is 
that  he  did  not  adopt  and  use  the  name  until  he  found 
himself  in  prison.  When  the  S.  S.  McClure  Company 
wrote  to  him  about  "The  Miracle  of  Lava  Canon" 
(see  page  124),  he  had  been  out  of  New  Orleans  nearly 
a  year  and  was  never  to  see  the  city  again,  but  he  was 
addressed  as  W.  S.  Porter  and  the  story  was  published 
as  W.  S.  Porter's.  On  April  25,  1898,  the  day  on  which 
he  arrived  in  Columbus,  the  S.  S.  McClure  Company 
wrote  to  him  in  Austin,  addressing  him  as  Sydney 
Porter.  It  was  his  first  change  of  signature  and  was 
adopted  in  the  month  between  his  conviction  and  his 
commitment.  It  was  also  the  name  to  be  engraved 
upon  his  visiting  cards  in  New  York.  But  after  reach- 
ing Columbus,  not  before,  he  took  the  pen-name  0. 
Henry  and  kept  it  to  the  end.* 

♦So  far  as  I  can  discover,  only  three  stories  were  signed  Sydney  Porter  and  these  are  not 
reproduced  in  O.  Henry's  collected  works.  They  were  "The  Cactus"  and  "Round  the  Circle," 
both  published  in  Everybody's  for  October,  1902,  and  "Hearts  and  Hands,"  published  in  Every- 
body's for  December  of  the  same  year.  Other  names  occasionally  signed  were  Olivier  Henry, 
S.  H.  Peters,  James  L.  Bliss  (once),  T.  B.  Dowd,  and  Howard  Clark. 

169 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

One  of  the  most  interesting  odds  and  ends  found 
among  O.  Henry's  belongings  is  a  small  notebook  used 
by  him  in  prison.  In  it  he  jotted  down  the  names  of  his 
stories  and  the  magazines  to  which  he  sent  them.  It  is 
not  complete,  the  first  date  being  October  1,  1900.  It 
contains,  therefore,  no  mention  of  "Whistling  Dick's 
Christmas  Stocking,"  which  appeared  in  McClures 
Magazine  for  December,  1899,  or  of  "  Georgia's  Ruling," 
to  which  he  alludes  in  the  letter  to  Mrs.  Roach  (see 
page  162).  Of  the  stories  now  grouped  into  books, 
these  two  were  the  first  written.  The  stories  listed  in 
the  prison  notebook  and  now  republished  in  book  form 
are,  in  chronological  order,  "An  Afternoon  Miracle,"* 
"Money  Maze,"  "No  Story,"  "A  Fog  in  Santone," 
"A  Blackjack  Bargainer,"  "The  Enchanted  Kiss," 
"Hygeia  at  the  Solito,"  "Rouge  et  Noir,"  "The  Du- 
plicity of  Hargraves,"  and  "The  Marionettes." 

These  twelve  stories,  three  of  which  were  picked  as 
among  0.  Henry's  best  in  the  plebiscite  held  by  the 
Bookman,  June,  1914,  show  a  range  of  imagination,  a 
directness  of  style,  and  a  deftness  of  craftsmanship  to 
which  little  was  to  be  added.  In  the  silent  watches  of 
the  night,  when  the  only  sound  heard  was  "the  occa- 
sional sigh  or  groan  from  the  beds  which  were  stretched 
before  him  in  the  hospital  ward  or  the  tramp  of  the 
passing  guard,"  O.  Henry  had  come  into  his  own.     He 

*This  is  a  re-shaping  of  his  first  story,  "The  Miracle  of  Lava  Canon."    See  page  124. 

170 


THE  SHADOWED  YEARS 

had  passed  from  journalism  to  literature.  He  had 
turned  a  stumbling-block  into  a  stepping-stone.  And 
his  mother's  graduating  essay,  ''The  Influence  of  Mis- 
fortune on  the  Gifted,"  written  a  half  century  before, 
had  received  its  strangest  and  most  striking  fulfilment. 


171 


CHAPTER  SEVEN 

FINDING    HIMSELF    IN    NEW    YORK 

ON  JULY  24,  1901,  the  day  of  his  liberation,  0.  Henry 
went  to  Pittsburg  where  his  daughter  and  her  grand- 
parents were  then  hving.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Roach  had 
moved  from  Austin  immediately  after  the  trial.  Mr. 
Roach  was  now  the  manager  of  the  Iron  Front  Hotel  in 
Pittsburg,  and  here  O.  Henry  improvised  an  oiBSce  in 
which  he  secluded  himself  and  wrote  almost  continu- 
ously. The  stories  that  had  issued  from  the  prison  in 
Columbus  had  gone  first  to  New  Orleans  and  had  been 
re-mailed  there.  Now  the  stories  were  sent  direct 
from  Pittsburg. 

The  call  or  rather  invitation  to  New  York  came  in 
the  spring  of  1902.  Mr.  Oilman  Hall,  associate  editor 
of  Everybody's  Magazine  but  at  that  time  associate 
editor  of  Ainslee'sy  had  written  an  appreciative  letter  to 
O.  Henry  before  the  prison  doors  had  opened.  The 
letter  was  directed,  of  course,  to  New  Orleans  where 
the  stories  were  thought  to  originate.  "The  stories  that 
he  submitted  to  Duffy  and  myself,"  said  Mr.  Hall, 
"both  from  New  Orleans  and  Pittsburg  were  so  excel- 
lent that  at  least  the  first  seven  out  of  eight  were  imme- 
172 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 

diately  accepted.  For  these  first  stories  we  gave  him 
probably  seventy-five  dollars  each."  O.  Henry  did  not 
go  to  New  York  under  contract.  He  went  because 
Mr.  Hall,  quick  to  discover  merit  and  unhappy  till  he 
has  extended  a  helping  hand,  urged  him  to  come. 

New  York  needed  him  and  he  needed  New  York. 
How  great  the  need  was  on  both  sides  it  is  not  likely  that 
Mr.  Hall  or  Mr.  Duffy  or  O.  Henry  himself  knew. 
During  the  eight  years  of  his  stay,  however,  O.  Henry 
was  to  get  closer  to  the  inner  life  of  the  great  city  and 
to  succeed  better  in  giving  it  a  voice  than  any  one  else 
had  done.  To  O.  Henry  this  last  quest  of  "What's 
around  the  corner,"  confined  now  to  a  city  that  was  a 
world  within  itself,  was  to  be  his  supreme  inspiration. 
Very  soon  he  found  that  he  could  not  work  outside  of 
New  York.  "I  could  look  at  these  mountains  a  hun- 
dred years,"  he  said  to  Mrs.  Porter  in  Asheville,  "and 
never  get  an  idea,  but  just  one  block  downtown  and  I 
catch  a  sentence,  see  something  in  a  face — and  I've  got 
my  story."  If  ever  in  American  literature  the  place 
and  the  man  met,  they  met  when  O.  Henry  strolled  for 
the  first  time  along  the  streets  of  New  York. 

"Of  the  writing  men  and  women  of  the  newer  gene- 
ration," says  Mr.  Arthur  Bartlett  Maurice,*  "the  men 
and  women  whose  trails  are  the  subject  of  these  papers, 
there  are  many  who  have  staked  claims  to  certain  New 

*See  "The  New  York  of  the  Novelists"  (the  Bookman,  New  York,  October,  1915). 

173 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

Y^ork  streets  or  quarters.  There  has  been  but  one 
conqueror  of  Alexander-Hke  ambitions,  that  is,  of 
course,  the  late  O.  Henry,  and  Sydney  Porter's  name 
will  naturally  appear  again  and  again  in  these  and  in 
ensuing  papers.  To  north,  east,  south,  and  west, 
stretch  his  trails;  to  north,  east,  south,  and  west,  he 
wandered  like  a  modern  Haroun  al  Raschid.  And  like  a 
conqueror  he  rechristened  the  city  to  suit  his  whimsical 
humour.  At  one  moment  it  is  his  'Little  Old  Bagdad- 
on-the-Subway ' ;  at  another,  'The  City  of  Too  Many 
Caliphs';  at  another,  ' Noisy ville-on-the-Hudson ' ;  or, 
*  Wolf  ville-on-the-Sub way ' ;  or, '  The  City  of  Chameleon 
Changes.'" 

The  acceptance  of  the  invitation  to  come  to  New 
York  without  a  definite  engagement  is  evidence  that 
O.  Henry  had  at  last  gained  confidence  in  himself  as  a 
writer.  This  confidence  was  a  fruit  of  the  years  spent 
in  Columbus.  Without  faith  in  himself  no  power  of 
persuasion  could,  I  think,  have  induced  him  to  launch 
liimself  in  a  city  where  he  had  not  only  no  assured  posi- 
tion but  no  friends  or  acquaintances.  Like  Childe 
Roland's  acceptance  of  the  challenge  on  the  occasion 
of  his  memorable  first  visit  to  the  Dark  Tower,  O. 
Henry's  acceptance  of  the  invitation  to  come  to  New 
York  was  in  itself  the  pledge  of  ultimate  victory.  It  is 
certain  that  he  took  with  him  to  New  York  short  story 
material  not  yet  worked  up,  but  that  he  had  any  definite 
174 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 

plan  of  publication,  any  particular  plots  that  could  be 
more  easily  completed  in  the  more  favourable  atmos- 
phere of  a  great  city,  is  not  likely.  It  is  more  probable 
that  the  desire  to  get  into  the  game  and  the  conscious- 
ness that  he  could  play  it  now  or  never,  if  given  a  chance, 
were  the  ruling  forces  in  the  decision.  The  passion  for 
self-expression  which  began  in  his  earliest  youth  had 
grown  with  every  later  experience,  and  there  was  now 
added  the  determination,  come  what  might,  to  give  his 
daughter  the  best  education  possible.  The  road  lay 
through  the  short  story  with  New  York  as  his  workshop. 
Nobody  except  the  family  trio  in  Pittsburg  and  the 
editors  and  publishers  of  Ainslee's  Magazine  knew  that 
O.  Henry  was  going  to  New  York.  He  had  spent  a  day 
or  two  in  the  city  before  he  called  at  Duane  and  William 
streets  to  make  himself  known.  "As  happens  in  these 
matters,"  writes  Mr.  Richard  Duffy,*  "whatever  mind 
picture  Gilman  Hall  or  I  had  formed  of  him  from  his 
letters,  his  handwriting,  his  stories,  vanished  before  the 
impression  of  the  actual  man.  To  meet  him  for  the 
first  time  you  felt  his  most  notable  quality  to  be  reti- 
cence, not  a  reticence  of  social  timidity,  but  a  reticence 
of  deliberateness.  If  you  also  were  observing,  you  would 
soon  understand  that  his  reticence  proceeded  from  the 
fact  that  civilly  yet  masterfully  he  was  taking  in  every 
item  of  the  'you'  being  presented  to  him  to  the  accom- 

*  See  the  Bookman,  New  York,  October,  1913. 

175 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

paniment  of  convention's  phrases  and  ideas,  together 
with  the  'you'  behind  this  presentation.  It  was  be- 
cause he  was  able  thus  to  assemble  and  sift  all  the  multi- 
farious elements  of  a  personality  with  sleight-of-hand 
swiftness  that  you  find  him  characterising  a  person  or  a 
neighbourhood  in  a  sentence  or  two ;  and  once  I  heard  him 
characterise  a  list  of  editors  he  knew  each  in  a  phrase." 

No  one  in  New  York  came  to  know  him  better  or  felt 
a  warmer  affection  for  him  than  Mr.  Gilman  Hall. 
*'I  was  sure,"  said  Mr.  Hall,  "that  he  had  a  past, 
though  he  did  not  tell  me  of  it  and  I  did  not  inquire  into 
it.  It  was  not  till  after  his  death  that  I  learned  of  the 
years  spent  in  Columbus.  I  used  to  notice,  however, 
that  whenever  we  entered  a  restaurant  or  other  public 
place  together  he  would  glance  quickly  around  him  as  if 
expecting  an  attack.  This  did  not  last  long,  however. 
I  thought  that  he  had  perhaps  killed  some  one  in  a 
ranch  fight,  for  he  told  me  that  he  had  lived  on  a  ranch 
in  Texas.  This  inference  was  strengthened  by  finding 
that  he  was  a  crack  shot  with  a  pistol,  being  very  fond 
of  shooting-galleries  as  well  as  of  bowling  alleys.  But 
when  I  found  that  he  did  not  carry  a  pistol,  I  began  to 
doubt  the  correctness  of  my  theory." 

Mr.  Duffy  relates  that  he  found  O.  Henry  a  man  with 
whom  you  could  sit  for  a  long  time  and  feel  no  necessity 
for  talking,  though  a  passerby  would  often  evoke  from 
him  a  remark  that  later  reappeared  as  the  basis  of  a 
176 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 

story.  "Any  one  who  endeavoured  to  question  him 
about  himself,"  continues  Mr.  Duffy,  "would  learn 
very  little,  especially  if  he  felt  he  was  being  examined  as 
a*literary '  exhibit;  although  when  he  was  in  the  humour 
he  would  give  you  glimpses  of  his  life  in  Greensboro  and 
on  the  ranch  to  which  he  had  gone  as  a  young  man, 
because  he  had  friends  there  and  because  he  was  said 
to  be  delicate  in  the  chest.  He  would  never,  however, 
tell  you  'the  story  of  his  life'  as  the  saying  is,  but  merely 
let  you  see  some  one  or  some  happening  in  those  days 
gone  by  that  might  fit  in  well  with  the  present  moment, 
for  always  he  lived  emphatically  in  the  present,  not 
looking  back  to  yesterday,  not  very  far  ahead  toward 
to-morrow.  For  instance,  I  first  heard  of  a  doctor  in 
Greensboro,  who  was  his  uncle,  I  believe,  and  something 
of  a  character  to  O.  Henry  at  least,  when  I  inquired 
about  a  story  he  was  writing, — how  it  was  coming  along. 
Then  he  told  me  of  the  doctor  who,  when  asked  about 
any  of  his  patients,  how  they,  Mr.  Soandso  or  Mrs. 
Soandso,  were  getting  along,  would  invariably  reply 
with  omniscience:  'Oh,  Mrs.  Soandso  is  progressing!' 
But  as  O.  Henry  said:  'He  never  explained  which  way 
the  patient  was  progressing,  toward  better  or  worse.' 
It  was  here  in  Greensboro  naturally  that  he  began  to 
have  an  interest  in  books,  and  I  recall  among  those  he 
used  to  mention  as  having  read  at  the  time,  that  one 
night  he  spoke  to  me  of  a  copybook  of  poems  written 

177 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

by  his  mother.  He  spoke  with  shy  reverence  about  the 
poems,  which  he  no  doubt  remembered,  but  he  did  not 
speak  of  them  particularly.  They  were  merely  poems, 
written  by  her  in  her  own  hand,  and  as  a  young  man 
they  had  come  to  him." 

O.  Henry  could  not  be  prevailed  upon  to  meet  a  man 
simply  because  the  man  was  a  celebrity  nor,  when  he 
himself  became  a  celebrity,  would  he  permit  himself  to 
be  visited  as  such  if  he  could  help  it.  There  was  never 
a  moment  of  his  stay  in  New  York  when  the  four  million 
were  not  more  interesting  to  him  than  the  four  hundred. 
One  self -protective  device  that  stood  him  in  good  stead 
was  a  sort  of  pan-American  dialect  which  he  adopted 
on  such  occasions  and  which  served  as  a  deterrent  to 
future  offenders.  Thus  a  woman  who  had  written  to 
him  about  his  stories  and  who  insisted  on  bringing  a 
friend  to  meet  the  great  man  said  to  him  afterward: 
*'You  mortified  me  nearly  to  death,  you  talked  so 
ungrammatical."  Another  method  of  evasion  was  to 
drop  into  a  perfectly  serious  vein  of  Artemus  Ward 
rusticity.  There  was  fun  in  it  to  those  who  understood, 
but  it  was  meant  for  those  who  did  not  and  could  not 
understand  and  it  had  the  desired  effect. 

But  with  a  congenial  companion,  O.  Henry  was  more 
interesting  than  his  stories.  Almost  all,  however,  who 
have  written  about  him  mention  his  barrier  of  initial 
reserve.  Till  this  was  penetrated — and  he  had  to 
178 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 

penetrate  it  himself  by  sensing  a  potential  friend  in  the 
casual  acquaintance — there  was  no  flow.  "My  first 
impression  of  O.  Henry,"  writes  Mrs.  Wilson  Woodrow, 
"and an  impression  which  lasted  during  half  the  evening 
at  least,  was  one  of  disappointment.  This  wonderful 
story  teller  struck  me  as  stolid  and  imperturbable  in  ap- 
pearance and  so  unresponsive  and  reserved  in  manner 
that  I  had  a  miserable  feeling  that  I  was  a  failure  as  a 
guest,  and  nothing  hurts  a  writer's  vanity,  a  woman  writ- 
er's anyway,  so  much  as  to  have  her  work  considered  more 
interesting  and  attractive  than  herself.  But  presently 
Mr.  Porter  began  to  sparkle.  He  was  unquestionably 
a  great  raconteur.  I  am  sure  that  if  his  table-talk  had 
ever  been  taken  down  in  shorthand,  it  would  have 
sounded  very  much  like  his  written  dialogue,  only  it 
was  not  circumscribed  and  curbed  by  the  limits  of  the 
story  and  the  necessity  of  keeping  the  narrative  upper- 
most. 

"His  wit  was  urban,  sophisticated,  individual;  en- 
tirely free  from  tricks  and  the  desire  to  secure  effects. 
It  was  never  mordant  nor  corrosive;  it  did  not  eat  nor 
fester;  it  struck  clean  and  swift  and  sure  as  a  stroke  of 
lightning.  It  was  packed  with  world-knowledge,  de- 
signed to  delight  the  woman  of  thirty,  not  of  twenty,  and 
yet  I  never  heard  him  tell  a  story  even  faintly  risque. 
He  was  the  most  delightful  of  companions,  thoughtful  to 
a  degree  of  one's  comfort  and  enjoyment,  and  his  wit 

179 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

never  flagged;  quite  effortless,  it  bubbled  up  from  an 
inexhaustible  spring.  Most  brilliant  talkers  are  quite 
conscious  of  their  gift;  they  put  it  through  all  its  paces, 
and  you  are  expected  to  award  the  blue  ribbon  of  appre- 
ciation. Not  so  O.  Henry.  He  treated  it  as  carelessly 
and  casually  as  an  extravagant  and  forgetful  woman 
does  her  jewels.  He  was  absolutely  free  from  any  pose, 
and  he  would  tolerate  none.  He  gave  and  he  exacted 
always  the  most  punctilious  courtesy.  But  more,  I 
think  that  his  was  one  of  the  proudest  spirits,  so  sensi- 
tive, too,  that  he  protected  himself  from  the  crude  and 
rude  touch  of  the  world  in  a  triple-plated  armour  of 
mirth  and  formality." 

O.  Henry's  friends  soon  found  that  money  went 
through  his  hands  like  water  through  a  sieve.  He 
simply  could  not  keep  it.  His  tips  were  often  twice 
the  amount  of  the  bill.  The  view  has  been  expressed 
more  than  once  in  print  that  O.  Henry  was  the  victim 
while  in  New  York  of  some  sort  of  blackmail,  that  on  no 
other  theory  could  his  constant  pennilessness  be  ac- 
counted for.  Those  who  knew  him  best,  however,  not 
only  discredit  the  theory  but  find  no  reason  to  invoke  it. 
Money  was  not  squeezed  from  him — he  gave  it  away, 
willingly,  bounteously,  gladly.  "He  would  share  his 
last  dollar,"  writes  Mrs.  Porter,  "with  a  fellow  who 
came  to  him  with  a  hard-luck  story.  He  would  give 
away  the  clothes  he  needed  himself  to  a  man  poorer 
180 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 

than  himself."  He  not  only  gave  freely  to  any  beggar 
or  street  waif  or  hobo  that  called  upon  him,  says  Mr. 
Hall,  but  as  he  showed  them  to  the  door  he  would  ask 
them  to  call  again. 

As  penniless  as  he  usually  was,  however,  and  as  eager 
as  he  always  was  to  know  the  feel  of  money  in  his  pocket, 
you  could  not  move  him  a  hair's-breadth  by  dangling 
money  before  him.  When  publishers  and  periodicals 
that  had  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  him  in  his  struggling  days 
sought  to  capitalize  his  fame  by  patronizing  him  he 
assumed  their  former  rule.  He  did  the  declining.  Mr. 
Clarence  L.  CuUen  narrates  the  following  incident:* 

I  was  with  him  at  the  Twenty-sixth  Street  place  one  afternoon 
when  a  batch  of  mail  was  brought  to  him.  One  of  the  envelopes 
caught  his  eye.  On  the  envelope  was  printed  the  name  of  one  of 
the  leading  fiction  publications  in  all  the  world,  if  not  indeed  the 
most  important  of  them  all.  Many  times  during  the  years  when 
he  had  been  struggling  for  a  foothold  as  a  writer  of  short  stories 
he  had  submitted  his  tales,  including  the  best  of  them,  to  the 
editor  of  this  publication.  Always  had  they  come  back  with  the 
conventional  printed  slip.  When  he  reached  the  topmost  rung 
of  the  ladder  he  meticulously  refrained  from  submitting  anything 
to  that  particular  publication,  the  writers  for  which  comprised 
the  leading  "names"  in  the  world  of  fiction. 

He  ripped  open  this  envelope  which  attracted  his  eye.  There 
was  a  note  and  a  check  for  $1,000,  The  note  asked  him  briefly 
for  sometliing  from  his  pen — anything — with  that  word  under- 
scored— check  for  which  was  therewith  enclosed.  If  the  thousand 
dollars  were  not  deemed  sufficient,  the  note  went  on,  he  had  only 

*The  New  York  Sun,  January  10,  1915. 

181 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

to  name  what  sum  he  considered  fair  and  the  additional  amomit 
would  be  remitted  to  him. 

Porter,  who  probably  was  the  least  vainglorious  writer  of  equal 
fame  that  ever  lived,  smiled  a  sort  of  cherubic  smile  as  he  passed 
the  note  over  to  me.  When  I  had  finished  reading  it,  without 
comment,  he,  saying  never  a  word,  addressed  an  envelope  to 
the  editor  of  the  publication,  slipped  the  check  into  the  envelope, 
stamped  the  envelope  and  went  out  into  the  hall  and  deposited 
it  in  the  drop.     Not  a  word  passed  between  us  about  the  offer. 


If  0.  Henry's  chief  quest  in  New  York  was  for 
"What's  around  the  corner,"  his  underlying  purpose 
was  to  get  first-hand  material  for  short  stories.  Those 
who  knew  him  most  intimately  believe  that  he  never 
borrowed  a  plot.  "  Two  things,"  says  Mr.  Hall, "  stirred 
his  indignation:  a  salacious  story  and  the  proffer  of  a 
plot.  'Don't  you  know  better,'  he  would  say,  *than 
to  offer  me  a  plot.'^' "  It  was  a  necessity  of  his  nature 
to  manufacture  his  products  from  the  raw  material. 

Hints  he  took  and  from  all  conceivable  sources. 
"Once  at  a  dinner,"  says  Mrs.  Porter,  "my  brother  told 
him  of  a  man  who  hated  the  particular  locality  in  which 
he  lived  so  bitterly  that  he  had  gone  far  away,  but  at 
death  his  body  had  been  brought  back  to  the  very  spot 
he  disliked  for  burial."  O.  Henry  was  seen  to  jot  down 
the  idea  on  his  cuff,  but  it  does  not  reappear  in  any  of 
his  stories.  Nor  does  an  earlier  incident  of  which  he 
made  at  least  a  mental  note  at  the  time.  A  prisoner 
convicted  of  murder  had  been  electrocuted  in  Columbus 
182 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 

and  his  last  words  were,  "a  curse  upon  the  warden  and 
all  of  his."  Two  weeks  afterward  the  warden  dropped 
dead.  There  was  much  talk  and  still  more  excitement 
about  it  among  the  prisoners.  "As  we  were  repeating 
this  to  Dr.  Thomas,"  writes  Mr.  J.  Clarence  Sullivan, 
a  reporter  in  Columbus,  "O.  Henry  remarked:  'So  you 
see  a  story  to-day,  do  you.^^'  and  then,  as  usual,  went 
from  the  room."  It  was  the  only  time  that  the  re- 
porters in  Columbus  had  heard  him  utter  a  word,  for 
he  avoided  them  sedulously.  But  no  story  that  he 
wrote,  so  far  as  I  recall,  turns  upon  the  fulfilment  of  a 
malediction.  O.  Henry  found  his  usable  material  in 
things  seen  rather  than  in  things  heard,  or,  if  heard,  they 
were  heard  at  first-hand. 

The  two  incidents  mentioned,  moreover,  illustrate 
human  destiny  rather  than  human  character,  and  O. 
Henry's  quest  was  for  character  manifestations.  These 
he  sought  in  the  mass  rather  than  in  rare  or  abnormal 
displays.  "When  I  first  came  to  New  York,"  he  once 
said,  "I  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  knocking  around  the 
streets.  I  did  things  then  that  I  wouldn't  think  of 
doing  now.  I  used  to  walk  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and 
night  along  the  river  fronts,  through  Hell's  Kitchen, 
down  the  Bowery,  dropping  into  all  manner  of  places, 
and  talking  with  any  one  who  would  hold  converse  with 
me.  I  never  met  any  one  but  what  I  could  learn  some- 
thing from  him;  he's  had  some  experience  that  I  have 

183 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

not  had;  he  sees  the  world  from  his  own  viewpoint.  If 
you  go  at  it  in  the  right  way,  the  chances  are  that  you 
can  extract  something  of  value  from  him.  But  what- 
ever else  you  do,  don't  flash  a  pencil  and  notebook; 
either  he  will  shut  up  or  he  will  become  a  Hall  Caine." 

There  is  evidently  a  rich  vein  of  autobiography  in  the 
words  with  which  he  introduces  "He  Also  Serves": 

If  I  could  have  a  thousand  years — just  one  little  thousand  years 
— more  of  life,  I  might,  in  that  time,  draw  near  enough  to  true 
Romance  to  touch  the  hem  of  her  robe. 

Up  from  ships  men  come,  and  from  waste  places  and  forest 
and  road  and  garret  and  cellar  to  maunder  to  me  in  strangely 
distributed  words  of  the  things  they  have  seen  and  considered. 
The  recording  of  their  tales  is  no  more  than  a  matter  of  ears  and 
fingers.  There  are  only  two  fates  I  dread — deafness  and  ^VT-iter's 
cramp. 

From  what  O.  Henry  himself  said  of  his  way  of 
getting  story  material  and  from  what  those  closest  to 
him  in  New  York  have  reported,  it  would  seem  that 
two  kinds  of  the  city's  population,  two  strata  of  its 
society,  interested  him  most:  those  who  were  under  a 
strain  of  some  sort  and  those  who  were  under  a  delusion. 
The  first  stirred  his  sympathy ;  the  second  furnished  him 
unending  entertainment.  Both  are  abundantly  repre- 
sented in  his  stories,  and  both  marked  out  trails  that  he 
followed  eagerly  to  the  end. 

Of  his  efforts  to  know  the  life  of  the  working  girls 
184 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 
of  New  York  before  writing  about  them,  no  one  can 
speak  more  authoritatively  than  Miss  Anne  Partlan. 
"He  told  me,"  she  writes,*  "that  the  hand-to-mouth 
life  that  girls  led  in  New  York  interested  him  and  when 
he  came  to  New  York  he  looked  me  up.  I  used  to  have 
parties  of  my  friends  up  to  meet  him  and  they  never 
dreamed  that  this  Mr.  Porter,  who  fitted  so  well  into 
our  queer  makeshift  life,  was  a  genius.  He  had  abso- 
lutely no  pose.  'The  Unfinished  Story'  and  'The 
Third  Ingredient'  were  taken  straight  from  life.  That 
is  why  there  is  never  anything  sordid  in  the  little  stories. 
We  were  poor  enough  in  our  dingy  rooms  but  he  saw  the 
little  pleasures  and  surprises  that  made  life  bearable 
to  us." 

O.  Henry's  general  manner  at  such  times  is  thus 
described  by  Miss  Partlan  .-f 

There  was  nothing  of  the  brilliant  wit  about  the  great  story 
writer  when  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  shop-girl,  clerk,  or  salesman. 
Instead,  there  was  a  quiet,  sympathetic  attitude  and,  at  times,  a 
pre-occupied  manner  as  if  their  remarks  and  chatter  reminded 
him  of  his  old  days  of  bondage  in  the  country  drug  store,  and  the 
perpetual  pillmaking  which  he  was  wont  to  describe  with  an 
amusing  gesture,  indicating  the  process  of  forming  the  cure-all. 

One  evening  a  group  of  department  store  employees  were  having 
dinner  with  me.  Among  them  were  sales-girls,  an  associate 
buyer,  and  one  of  the  office  force.  I  asked  O.  Henry  to  join 
us  so  that  he  might  catch  the  spirit  of  their  daily  life.     He  leavened 

*Se€  the  Writer,  Boston,  August,  1914. 

tSee  "My  Friend  O.  Henry,"  by  Mr.  Seth  Moyle,  pages  16-17. 

185 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

their  shop-talk  with  genial,  simple  expressions  of  mirth  as  they 
told  their  tales  of  petty  intrigue  and  strife  for  place  amid  the 
antagonism  and  pressure  which  pervades  the  atmosphere  of 
every  big  organization.  On  leaving,  he  remarked  to  me:  "If 
Henry  James  had  gone  to  work  in  one  of  those  places,  he  would 
have  turned  out  the  great  American  novel." 

On  another  occasion,  the  conversation  turned  to  feather  curl- 
ing, and  he  astonished  me  with  his  detailed  knowledge  of  the 
craft.  I  asked  him  where  he  had  learned  so  much  about  the 
work  and  he  told  me  that  in  one  of  his  first  months  in  New  York 
he  was  living  in  very  humble  lodgings  and  one  evening  found  him 
without  funds.  He  became  so  hungry  that  he  could  not  finish 
the  story  on  which  he  was  working,  and  he  walked  up  and  down 
the  landing  between  the  rooms.  The  odor  of  cooking  in  one  of 
the  rooms  increased  his  pangs,  and  he  was  beside  himself  when 
the  door  opened  and  a  young  girl  said  to  him,  "Have  you  had 
your  supper.''  I've  made  hazlett  stew  and  it's  too  much  for  me. 
It  won't  keep,  so  come  and  help  me  eat  it."* 

He  was  grateful  for  the  invitation  and  partook  of  the  stew 
which,  she  told  him,  was  made  from  the  liver,  kidneys,  and  heart 
of  a  calf.  The  girl  was  a  feather  curler  and,  during  the  meal,  she 
explained  her  work  and  showed  him  the  peculiar  kind  of  dull  blade 
which  was  used  in  it.  A  few  days  later  he  rapped  at  her  door  to 
ask  her  to  a  more  substantial  dinner,  but  he  found  that  she  had 
gone  and  left  no  address. 

Miss  Partlan's  father,  an  expert  mechanic  and  an 
inventor  of  blacksmith's  tools,  asked  O.  Henry  to 
accompany  him  to  a  meeting  of  master  workmen. 
Miss  Partlan  continues: 

Speeches  were  made  by  masters  of  their  craft,  filled  with  refer- 
ences to  "side  hill  plows,"  "bolt  cutters,"  and  "dressing  chisels 

*See  "The  Third  Ingredient." 

186 


Courtesy  of 
Mr.  Arthur  Bartlett  Maurice 


THE    CALEDONIA 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 

for  rock  use."  The  speeches  referred  to  the  most  humane  make  of 
horse  shoes,  bar  iron,  toe  calks,  and  hoof  expanders.  All  of  this 
fell  on  no  more  attentive  ears  than  O.  Henry's.  A  Scotchman 
presently  arose  and  spoke  on  coach  building.  He  told  of  a  wood 
filUng  which  he  once  made  of  the  dust  gathered  from  forges, 
mixed  with  a  peculiar  sort  of  clay.  His  enunciation  was  not  clear 
and  more  than  once  O.  Henry  turned  to  me  to  ask  me  if  I  had 
caught  the  indistinct  word. 

After  the  speeches  came  dancing  of  the  Lancers  and  the  Virginia 
Reel.  O.  Henry  threw  himself  into  the  spirit  like  a  boy.  He  danced 
and  whistled  and  called  out  numbers,  laughing  heartily  when 
in  the  maze  of  a  wrong  turn.  No  one  there  dreamed  he  was 
other  than  a  fellow-working  man. 

"Where  do  you  keep  shop,  Mr.  Porter?"  asked  the  wife  of  a 
Missouri  mechanic. 

"Mr.  Porter  is  an  author,"  I  replied  impulsively. 

"Well,  I  can  do  other  things,"  he  retorted  with  a  note  of  de- 
fense as  he  continued,  "I  can  rope  cows,  and  I  tried  sheep  raising 
once." 

But  O.  Henry's  favourite  coign  of  vantage  was  the 
restaurant.  From  his  seat  here,  as  from  his  broad 
window  in  the  Caledonia  on  West  Twenty-sixth  Street, 
he  gazed  at  his  peep-show  with  a  zest  and  interpretative 
insight  that  never  flagged.  Henry  James  says  some- 
where: "It  is  an  incident  for  a  woman  to  stand  up  with 
her  hand  resting  on  a  table  and  look  at  you  in  a  certain 
way."  O.  Henry  would  have  preferred  that  she  sit 
down  and  order  something.  Restaurant  tables  mir- 
rored better  for  him  than  centre  tables.  The  more 
individual  hotels,  restaurants,  and  cabarets  of  New 
York  were  ticketed  and  classified  in  his  mind  as  men 

187 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

classify  bugs  or  books.  Their  patrons  he  divided  into 
two  classes:  those  who  knew  and  those  who  thought 
they  knew,  the  real  thing  and  those  who  would  be  con- 
sidered the  real  thing.  If  the  "has-been's"  had  free 
access  to  O.  Henry's  pockets,  the  "would-be's"  occupy 
almost  an  equal  space  in  his  pages;  and  among  the 
"would-be's"  the  would-be  Bohemians  come  first. 

"Thrice  in  a  lifetime,"  says  O.  Henry,  "may  woman 
walk  upon  the  clouds — once  when  she  trippeth  to  the 
altar,  once  when  she  first  enters  Bohemian  halls,  the 
last  when  she  marches  back  across  her  first  garden  with 
the  dead  hen  of  her  neighbour."  Miss  Medora  Martin 
had  the  Bohemian  craze.  She  had  come  to  New  York 
from  the  village  of  Harmony,  at  the  foot  of  the  Green 
Mountains,  Vermont.  One  rainy  day  Mr.  Binkley, 
a  fellow  boarder,  who  was  forty-nine  and  owned  a  fish- 
stall  in  a  downtown  market,  had  gone  with  her  to  "one 
of  the  most  popular  and  widely  patronized,  jealously 
exclusive  Bohemian  resorts  in  the  city."  This  is  what 
took  place:* 

Binldey  had  abandoned  art  and  was  prating  of  the  unusual 
spring  catch  of  shad.  Miss  Elise  arranged  the  palette-and-maul- 
stick  tie  pin  of  IVIr.  Vandyke.  A  Philistine  at  some  distant  table 
was  maundering  volubly  either  about  Jerome  or  Gerome.  A 
famous  actress  was  discoursing  excitably  about  monogrammed 
hosiery.  A  hose  clerk  from  a  department  store  was  loudly  pro- 
claiming his  opinions  of  the  drama.     A  writer  was  abusing  Dickens. 

♦"Extradited  from  Bohemia." 

188 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 

A  magazine  editor  and  a  photographer  were  drinking  a  dry  brand 
at  a  reserved  table.  A  36-25-42  young  lady  was  saying  to  an 
eminent  sculptor:  "Fudge  for  your  Prax  Italys!  Bring  one  of 
your  Venus  Anno  Dominis  down  to  Cohen's  and  see  how  quick 
she'd  be  turned  down  for  a  cloak  model.  Back  to  the  quarries 
with  your  Greeks  and  Dagos!" 
Thus  went  Bohemia. 

Scenes  of  this  sort  were  dear  to  O.  Henry's  heart. 
Not  as  a  satirist  but  as  a  genial  and  immensely  amused 
spectator  he  would  sit  night  after  night  amid  these 
children  of  illusion  and  find  a  satisfaction  and  stimula- 
tion in  their  behaviour  that  real  Bohemia  was  powerless 
to  furnish.  "He  watched  them,"  writes  an  associate, 
"at  their  would-be  Bohemian  antics  with  his  broad  face 
creased  with  merriment,  and  I  would  that  it  had  been 
possible  to  get  phonographic  records  of  his  comments 
made  in  his  extraordinarily  low-pitched  voice." 

Though  O.  Henry's  studies  of  New  York  life  began 
as  soon  as  he  arrived  in  the  city,  it  is  not  till  1904  that 
his  stories  are  found  to  reflect  in  a  marked  degree  his 
new  environment.  The  intervening  stories  dealt  with 
the  West  or  Southwest  and  with  Central  or  South 
America.  One  of  these  early  Texas  stories,  "Madame 
Bo-Peep,  of  the  Ranches,"  deserves  more  than  a  passing 
notice.  It  is  a  satisfying  love  story,  redolent  of  happi- 
ness, of  genuineness,  of  green  prairies,  temperate  winds, 
and  blue  heavens,  with  just  enough  "centipedes  and 
privations"  to  bring  together  at  last  two  lives  that 

189 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

New  Y^ork  had  put  apart.  It  Is  mentioned  here  be- 
cause it  was  to  bring  together  two  other  Hves  that  are  of 
more  concern  to  us  just  now  than  either  Octavia  Beau- 
pree  or  Teddy  Westlake. 

The  story  was  pubHshed  in  the  Smart  Set  for  June, 
1902.  How  many  readers  treasured  it  for  the  beauty 
of  its  simple  plot  and  the  balm  of  its  wide  and  flowered 
spaces,  I  do  not  know.  Among  the  letters  written  to 
O.  Henry  by  admirers  of  his  stories  and  preserved 
among  his  effects,  there  is  none  that  mentions  "  Madame 
Bo-Peep."  But  one  letter  at  least  was  written,  and 
through  it  this  story  was  to  link  the  past  and  the  present 
of  0.  Henry's  life.  It  was  to  do  more  than  any  other 
one  story  to  bridge  the  chasm  between  Will  Porter  of 
Greensboro  and  O.  Henry  of  New  York.  It  was  ulti- 
mately to  reveal  to  the  friends  of  boyhood  days  that  the 
youthful  cartoonist  of  the  "somnolent  little  Southern 
town"  was  now  the  short  story  interpreter  of  Bagdad- 
on-the-Subway. 

Mrs.  Thaddeus  Coleman,  of  Asheville,  North  Caro- 
lina, the  mother  of  Miss  Sallie  Coleman,  for  whom  O. 
Henry  at  the  age  of  six  had  looted  the  magnolias  (see 
page  67) ,  had  been  visiting  in  New  York  in  the  spring  of 
1905.  There  she  learned  that  O.  Henry  was  Will 
Porter.  The  news  brought  to  Miss  Coleman  not  only 
surprise  but  eager  delight  and  a  train  of  long-slumbering 
memories.  "In  my  desk,"  writes  Mrs.  Porter,  "lay 
190 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 

'Madame  Bo-Peep'  and  I  loved  her.  I  wrote 
O.  Henry  a  note.  'If  you  are  not  Will  Porter,  don't 
bother  to  answer,'  I  said.  He  answered  but  does  not 
seem  to  have  bothered.  'Some  day,'  he  wrote, 
'when  you  are  not  real  busy,  won't  you  sit  down  at 
your  desk  where  you  keep  those  antiquated  stories  and 
write  to  me.^  I'd  be  so  pleased  to  hear  something  about 
what  the  years  have  done  for  you,  and  what  you  think 
about  when  the  tree  frogs  begin  to  holler  in  the  evening. 

A  little  later,  when  Miss  Coleman  had  mentioned  her 
ambition  to  write,  came  a  more  urgent  letter: 

Now  I'll  tell  you  what  to  do.  Kick  the  mountains  over  and 
pack  a  kimono  and  a  lead-pencil  in  a  suit-case  and  hurry  to  New 
York.  Get  a  little  studio  three  stories  up  with  mission  furniture 
and  portieres,  a  guitar  and  a  chafing-dish  and  laugh  at  fate  and 
the  gods.  There  are  lots  of  lovely  women  here  leading  beautiful 
and  happy  Uves  in  the  midst  of  the  greatest  things  in  this  hemi- 
sphere of  art  and  music  and  literature  on  tiny  little  incomes.  You 
meet  the  big  people  in  every  branch  of  art,  you  drink  deep  of  the 
Pierian  spring,  you  get  the  benefit  of  earth's  best. — 

They  were   married   in   Asheville   on   November   27, 
1907. 

Another  one  of  these  early  Western  stories,  "A  Re- 
trieved Reformation,"  has  probably  had  a  wider  vogue 
and  caused  its  author  to  be  pointed  out  more  frequently 
in  the  restaurants  and  theatres  of  New  York  than  any- 
thing else  that  he  wrote,  though  it  can  hardly  be  classed 

191 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

among  his  best.  The  suggestion  of  the  leading  charac- 
ter came,  doubtless,  as  Dr.  WiUiard  says  (see  page  151), 
from  Jimmy  Connors  of  the  Columbus  prison,  and  O. 
Henry  may  have  sketched  the  story  before  leaving 
Columbus.  It  first  appeared,  however,  in  the  Cosmo- 
politan of  April,  1903,  and  was  republished  as  "Mr. 
Valentine's  New  Profession"  in  the  London  Magazine 
of  the  following  September.  The  phraseology  is  changed 
here  and  there  in  the  English  version  and  always  for  the 
worse,  the  plot  and  incidents  remaining  the  same. 
On  May  5,  1909,  Curtis  Brown  and  Massie,  of  London, 
wrote  to  O.  Henry  thanking  him  for  "the  [enclosed] 
authorization  which  we  shall  have  pleasure  in  forward- 
ing to  the  French  translator."  The  money  received  for 
the  rights  of  French  translation  was  donated  by  O.  Henry 
to  the  Children's  Country  Holiday  Fund  of  England. 

The  French  translator  was  Mr.  A.  Foulcher,  a  civil 
engineer  now  in  the  French  army.  This  translation, 
says  Mr.  Foulcher,  was,  "without  my  knowledge  or 
consent,"  promptly  adapted  and  put  upon  the  Paris 
stage.  "Some  five  or  six  years  ago,"  he  writes,* 
"entering  by  chance  the  Vaudeville  one  fine  evening,  I 
had  the  pleasure  of  witnessing  the  performance  of  Mr. 
Valentine's  feats,  in  which  of  course  I  found  neither 
glory  nor  profits.  Mr.  Valentine  had  once  more  changed 
his  name,  but  he  was  the  same  man  and  played  the 

♦The  Dial,  Chicago,  May  11,  1916. 

192 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 

same  trick  on  the  safe."  A  French  stage  version,  by 
the  way,  which,  hke  Mr.  Paul  Armstrong's  American 
stage  version,  was  called  "Alias  Jimmy  Valentine," 
was  made  by  Mr.  Maurice  Tourneur,*  who  later  filmed 
the  play  for  the  United  States.  As  both  of  these  ver- 
sions preserve  the  original  name  Valentine,  it  must  have 
been  still  another  French  adaptation  that  Mr.Foulcher 
saw.  In  fact,  the  London  stage  version  is  known  as 
"Jimmy  Samson"  and  it  was  probably  a  re-adaptation 
of  this  version  that  Mr.  Foulcher  saw  played  in  Paris. 

A  Spanish  translation  of  the  English  "Jimmy  Sam- 
son" was  made  by  Sefior  Alberti  and  acted  at  the  Teatro 
Espanol  in  Madrid.  O.  Henry  would  hardly  recognize 
his  work  in  either  its  English  or  its  Spanish  form  till 
the  curtain  goes  up  for  the  last  time.  *'The  author," 
writes  a  Spanish  critic,t  "has  saved  for  this  point  his 
most  effective  stroke.  A  little  girl  has  got  shut  up  in 
the  safe  and  is  in  peril  of  being  asphyxiated.  Samson, 
actuated  by  his  good  heart,  hastens  to  open  the  safe 
and  thus  shows  to  the  police  who  are  following  him  that 
he  really  is  the  famous  thief  who  is  clever  enough  to 
open  safes  with  a  *  twist  of  the  wrist.'  The  sacrifice 
might  have  cost  him  his  happiness,  since  the  daughter 
of  the  minister  was  in  love  with  him,  and  also  his 
liberty,  since  the  police  have  at  last  discovered  him; 
but  the  latter  show  themselves  generous  and  the  girl 

•See  Harper's  Weekly.  April  29,  1916. 

\La  Iluslracion  Espanola  y  Americana,  Madrid,  February  15,  1912. 

193 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

continues  loving  him  in  spite  of  all,  and  so  all  of  us  are 
satisfied." 

But  Latin  America  had  laid  its  spell  on  O.  Henry, 
and  when  ''A  Retrieved  Reformation"  was  published 
the  author  was  better  known  as  a  writer  of  Central 
and  South  American  tales  than  of  those  dealing  with 
the  West  or  with  New  York.  "He  is  threatening  the 
supremacy  of  Mr.  Richard  Harding  Davis  in  a  field  in 
which  for  several  years  the  more  widely  known  writer 
has  been  absolutely  alone,"  wrote  Mr.  Stanhope 
Searles.*  0.  Henrj^  was  urged  to  put  his  Latin  Ameri- 
can stories  together,  to  add  others,  and  to  publish  the 
whole  as  a  novel.  This  was  the  origin  of  "Cabbages 
and  Kings,"  published  late  in  1904  and  0.  Henry's  first 
book.  It  shows  on  every  page  a  first-hand  acquaint- 
ance with  coastal  Latin  America.  Mr.  John  Ewing, 
Minister  to  Honduras,  writes  from  Tegucigalpa,  De- 
cember 16,  1915: 

From  conversations  with  people  who  have  hved  there  and  who 
have  read  "Cabbages  and  Kings,"  which  I  have  in  my  hbrary 
and  which,  by  the  way,  is  in  constant  demand,  I  understand  that 
it  is  recognized  and  admitted  to  be  true  to  Ufe  as  conditions  then 
existed  in  that  section. 

Dr.  B.  E.  Washburn,  of  the  International  Health 
Commission,  writes  from  Port  of  Spain,  Trinidad, 
August  26,  1915: 

♦The  Bookman,  New  York,  February,  1905. 

194 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 

During  a  recent  journey  through  the  West  Indies  and  the 
Guianas  I  visited  the  booksellers  and  made  inquiries  as  to  which 
American  authors  were  popular  in  each  country.  At  St.  Thomas, 
a  Danish  possession  (where  English  is  the  language  used,  however), 
I  found  the  works  of  Longfellow  and  Poe  for  sale.  At  Dominica 
only  Poe  was  represented  in  the  small  stock  of  books.  The  visit 
to  the  bookseller  in  Barbados  was  much  more  encouraging  for 
here  I  found  not  only  Poe  and  Longfellow,  but  also  Bret  Harte, 
Hawthorne,  Mary  Johnston,  and  O.  Henry.  At  Georgetown,  in 
British  Guiana,  I  also  found  O.  Henry,  as  well  as  many  of  the 
modern  American  novehsts,  especially  Mark  Twain,  Booth  Tark- 
ington,  Opie  Read,  James  Lane  Allen,  and  Anna  Katharine  Green. 
At  New  Amsterdam,  a  city  of  10,000  people  in  the  far  off  province 
of  Berbice,  in  Guiana,  I  found  only  Poe.  When  I  asked  the  book- 
seller and  "critique,"  as  he  termed  himself,  about  the  works  of 
O.  Henry,  he  drew  a  long  breath  and  said,  "They  are  finished," 
meaning  he  had  sold  out. 

This  particular  "critique"  had  reviewed  "Cabbages 
of  ze  King,"  but  "with  ze  failure  to  recognize  an  in- 
terest." It  was  too  hteral,  too  much  a  bare  recital  of 
things  as  they  are.  "Senor  O.  Henry  is  no  storie 
escritor,"  he  continued.  "Anybody  can  see  things 
happen  an'  write  'em  down.  You  exclaim  to  me  zat 
he  is  popular  in  ze  America.  Excuse  me,  an'  a  t'ousan' 
pardons  ef  I  offend,  but  ze  Americanos  can  be  no  judge 
of  ze  traits  of  ze  imaginaccion.  No  matter  ef  ze 
Americanos,  ze  Ingles,  or  ze  whole  world  entire  like  ze 
Senor  Henry,  he  is  no  storie  escritor.  But  ze  books  of 
him  do  sell!" 

The  London  Spectator  noted  in  "  Cabbages  and  Kings" 

195 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

"not  only  an  individual  point  of  view  but  a  remarkable 
gift  of  literary  expression."  In  fact,  almost  every 
characteristic  that  O.  Henry  was  later  to  develop  may 
here  be  found  in  embryo.  There  is  the  aj^parent  turn- 
ing aside  from  the  main  narrative  to  indulge  in  a  little 
philosophy,  a  sort  of  hide-and-seek  played  by  the  short 
story  and  its  ancestor,  the  essay:  see  the  passage  on 
pages  53-54  about  the  "quaint  old  theory  that  man 
may  have  two  souls — a  peripheral  one  which  serves 
ordinarily,  and  a  central  one  which  is  stirred  only  at 
certain  times,  but  then  with  activity  and  vigour." 

There  is  the  portrayal  of  character  by  a  few  signifi- 
cant details: 

The  fact  that  he  did  not  know  ten  woids  of  Spanish  was  no 
obstacle;  a  pulse  could  be  felt  and  a  fee  collected  without  one  being 
a  linguist.  Add  to  the  description  the  facts  that  the  doctor  had 
a  story  to  tell  concerning  the  operation  of  trepanning  which  no 
listener  had  ever  allowed  him  to  conclude,  and  that  he  believed  in 
brandy  as  a  prophylactic;  and  the  special  points  of  interest  pos- 
sessed by  Dr.  Gregg  will  have  become  exhausted. 

There  is  a  beauty  of  style  here  and  there,  a  tropic 
exuberance  of  colour,  a  wealth  of  leisurely  description, 
that  he  never  again  equalled.  Could  a  Honduran 
sunset  be  better  photographed  than  in  these  words  .^ — 

The  mountains  reached  up  their  bulky  shoulders  to  receive  the 
level  gallop  of  Apollo's  homing  steeds,  the  day  died  in  the  lagoons 

196 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 

and  In  the  shadowed  banana  groves  and  in  the  mangrove  swamps, 
where  the  great  bhie  crabs  were  beginning  to  crawl  to  land  for 
their  nightly  ramble.  And  it  died,  at  last,  upon  the  highest  peaks. 
Tlien  the  brief  twilight,  ephemeral  as  the  flight  of  a  moth,  came 
and  went;  the  Southern  Cross  peeped  with  its  topmost  eye  above 
a  row  of  palms,  and  the  fire-flies  heralded  with  their  torches  the 
approach  of  soft-footed  night. 

There  is  the  trick  of  the  diverted  and  diverting  quo- 
tation : 

"Then,"  says  I,  "we'll  export  canned  music  to  the  Latins;  but 
I'm  mindful  of  Mr.  Julius  Caesar's  account  of  'em  where  he  says: 
'Omnis  Gallia  in  ires  partes  divisa  est';  which  is  the  same  as  to  say, 
*We  will  need  all  of  our  gall  in  devising  means  to  tree  them  parties.'  " 

There  is  the  pitting  of  city  against  city : 

"Yes,  I  judge  that  town  was  considerably  on  the  quiet.  I  judge 
that  after  Gabriel  quits  blowing  his  horn,  and  the  car  starts, 
with  Philadelphia  swinging  to  the  last  strap,  and  Pine  Gully, 
Arkansas,  hanging  onto  the  rear  step,  this  town  of  Solitas  will 
wake  up  and  ask  if  anybody  spoke. 

There  is  the  art  of  hitting  the  target  by  seeming  to 
aim  above  it,  a  sort  of  calculated  exaggeration: 


"Twice  before,"  says  the  consul,  "I  have  cabled  our  govern- 
ment for  a  couple  of  gunboats  to  protect  American  citizens. 
The  first  time  the  Department  sent  me  a  pair  of  gum  boots. 
The  other  time  was  when  a  man  named  Pease  was  going  to  be 
executed  here.  They  referred  that  appeal  to  the  Secretary  of 
Agriculture." 

197 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

And  there  is  the  love  of  street  scenes  in  New  York 
which  was  to  grow  with  him  to  his  last  moment: 

I  get  homesick  sometimes,  and  I'd  swap  the  entire  perquisites 
of  office  for  just  one  hour  to  have  a  stein  and  a  caviare  sandwich 
somewhere  on  Thirty-fourth  Street,  and  stand  and  watch  the 
street  cars  go  by,  and  smell  the  peanut  roaster  at  old  Giuseppe's 
fruit  stand. 

But  with  all  these  divertissements  and  many  more, 
*' Cabbages  and  Kings"  was,  comparatively,  a  failure. 
It  is  not  equal  to  the  sum  total  of  its  seventeen  constitu- 
ent parts.  It  has  unity,  but  it  is  the  unity  of  a  sus- 
tained cleverness  carried  to  an  extreme.  Suspense  is 
preserved  but  interest  is  sacrificed.  Chapters  XII  and 
XIII,  called  respectively  "Shoes"  and  "Ships,"  will 
illustrate.  These  two  stories  had  not  been  previously 
published.  They  were  fashioned  and  put  in  after  the 
author  had  decided  to  amplify  his  title  by  giving  promi- 
nence to  the  stanza — 

"The  time  has  come,"  the  Walrus  said, 

"To  talk  of  many  things; 
Of  shoes  and  ships  and  sealing-wax, 
And  cabbages  and  kings." 

Sealing-wax  had  been  already  incidentally  mentioned 
in  "The  Lotus  and  the  Bottle"  which  was  published  in 
January,  1902,  and  which  forms  the  second  chapter  of 
198 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 
"Cabbages  and  Kings."  But  "shoes  and  ships"  must 
be  accounted  for,  though  the  natives  of  CoraHo  went 
barefooted.  So  five  hundred  pounds  of  stiff,  dry 
cockleburrs  are  shipped  from  Alabama  and  sprinkled 
by  night  along  the  narrow  sidewalks  of  Coralio.  Shoes 
become  a  necessity  and  ships  bring  them,  along  with 
more  cockleburrs.  But,  in  the  meanwhile,  the  two 
central  characters  of  the  novel,  Goodwin  and  his  wife, 
are  dropped  from  the  story.  They  must  wait  till  the 
exactions  of  line  three  of  our  prefatory  stanza  are  met 
and  resolved.  But,  more  disconcerting  still,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Goodwin  are  presented  as  charlatans  and  thieves. 
It  is  not  till  the  seventeenth  chapter  is  reached  that  we 
find  we  have  been  deceived.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Goodwin 
are  neither  charlatans  nor  thieves.  They  are  honest, 
clever,  and  likable.  We  must  reread  the  whole  story 
to  reinstate  them.     Clever.'^    Too  clever. 

By  the  time  "Cabbages  and  Kings"  was  published. 
New  York  life  had  gripped  O.  Henry  and  he  had  en- 
tered upon  his  most  prolific  period.  During  1904,  if  we 
omit  the  stories  pubhshed  in  "Cabbages  and  Kings" 
and  count  only  those  that  have  since  appeared  in  book 
form,  the  total  is  sixty-five;  the  total  for  1905  is  fifty. 
No  other  years  of  his  life  approximated  such  an  output. 
Of  these  hundred  and  fifteen  stories  all  but  twenty-one 
appeared  in  the  columns  of  the  New  York  World  and 
all  but  sixteen  deal  directly  or  indirectly  with  New  York 

199 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

City.  O.  Henry's  contract  with  the  World  called  for 
a  story  a  week,  the  payment  for  each  being  one  hundred 
dollars.  They  would  bring  now  at  the  lowest  estimate, 
writes  a  New  York  editor,  between  a  thousand  and 
fifteen  hundred  dollars  each.  \Vlien  we  consider  not 
only  the  number  of  these  stories  but  their  differences 
of  mood  and  manner,  their  equal  mastery  of  humour 
and  pathos,  their  sheer  originality  of  conception  and 
execution,  and  their  steadily  increasing  appeal  in  book 
form  to  every  grade  of  reader,  it  becomes  evident  that  a 
new  chapter  has  been  added  to  the  annals  of  narrative 
genius  in  this  country.  The  short  story  in  1904  and 
1905  developed  a  new  flexibility,  established  new  means 
of  communication  between  literature  and  life,  and,  as  a 
mirror  of  certain  aspects  of  American  society,  attained 
a  fidelity  and  an  adequacy  never  before  achieved. 

In  1906,  O.  Henry's  second  book  appeared,  "The 
Four  Million."  It  stamped  the  author  as  the  foremost 
American  short  story  writer  of  his  time  and  furnished 
also  in  its  famous  prefatory  note  a  clue  to  his  activities 
and  interests  during  1904-1905: 


Not  very  long  ago  some  one  invented  the  assertion  that  there 
were  only  "Four  Hundred"  people  in  New  York  City  who  were 
really  worth  noticing.  But  a  wiser  man  has  arisen — the  census 
taker — and  his  larger  estimate  of  human  interest  has  been  preferred 
in  marking  out  the  field  of  these  little  stories  of  the  "Four  Mil- 
lion." 
200 


Courtesy  of  'Air.  Arthur  Bartlett  Maurice 
NO.    flS    raVING    PJiACE.      AN    EARLY    NEW    YORK 
HOME    OF    O.    HENRY 


FINDING  HIMSELF  IN  NEW  YORK 

Each  succeeding  year  until  1911  was  to  be  marked  by 
the  publication  of  two  collections  of  his  stories:  "The 
Trimmed  Lamp"  and  "Heart  of  the  West"  in  1907, 
"The  Voice  of  the  City"  and  "The  Gentle  Grafter"  in 
1908,  "Roads  of  Destiny"  and  "Options"  in  1909, 
"Strictly  Business"  and  "Whirligigs"  in  1910.  A 
year  after  his  death  "Sixes  and  Sevens"  appeared,  and 
in  1913  "Rolling  Stones,"  the  latter  being  chiefly  a 
collection  of  early  material  with  an  Introduction  by  the 
lamented  Harry  Peyton  Steger. 

"The  Trimmed  Lamp,"  "The  Voice  of  the  City," 
and  "Strictly  Business"  are  "more  stories  of  the  four 
million"  and  were  written  for  the  most  part  in  1904- 
1905.  "Heart  of  the  West"  is  the  fruit  of  the  years 
spent  in  Texas,  most  of  the  stories  having  appeared 
before  1905.  "The  Gentle  Grafter"  found  its  inspira- 
tion in  the  stories  told  to  O.  Henry  from  1898  to  1901. 
The  first  eleven  stories  in  this  book  had  not  before  been 
published.  They  probably  belong,  as  do  some  of  the 
stories  in  "Cabbages  and  Kings,"  to  the  accumulation 
of  manuscript  mentioned  by  O.  Henry  in  his  letter  to 
Mrs.  Roach  (see  page  160),  though  they  could  hardly 
have  been  made  ready  for  publication  before  1908. 

"The  Gentle  Grafter"  is  not  a  novel.  It  is  a  kind  of 
"mulct'em  in  parvo,"  a  string  of  "Autolycan  adven- 
tures" told  by  one  whose  vocabulary  consisted  chiefly  of 
"contraband  sophistries"  and  whose  life  conformed  to 

201 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

"the  gilded  rule."  *'I  never  skin  a  sucker,"  says  Jeff, 
in  an  autobiographic  confession,  "without  admiring 
the  prismatic  beauty  of  his  scales.  I  never  sell  a  little 
auriferous  trifle  to  the  man  with  the  hoe  without  notic- 
ing the  beautiful  harmony  there  is  between  gold  and 
green."  The  stories  take  place  in  the  South,  in  the 
West,  and  in  New  York.  In  each  of  the  succeeding 
collections,  "Roads  of  Destiny,"  "Options,"  "Strictly 
Business,"  "\Miirligigs,"  and  "Sixes  and  Sevens,"  O. 
Henry  mingles  Latin  America,  the  South,  the  West,  and 
New  York.  The  titles,  however,  are  arbitrary  and  are 
not  intended  as  keynotes  to  the  contents. 

But  the  real  life  of  O.  Henry  in  New  York  is  to  be 
sought  in  the  ideas  out  of  which  the  stories  grew  rather 
than  in  the  succession  of  incidents  that  happened  to 
him  or  in  the  names  of  the  books  that  he  published. 
A  re-reading  of  the  stories  in  the  order  in  which  they 
were  written  seems  to  show  that  from  first  to  last  he 
moved  from  theme  to  theme.  Character,  plot,  and 
setting  were  ancillary  to  the  central  conception — 
were  but  the  concrete  expressions  of  the  changing  ideas 
that  he  had  in  mind.  Only  a  few  of  these  will  be  traced, 
enough  to  indicate,  however,  that  his  real  biography, 
the  biography  of  his  mind,  is  to  be  found  in  his  work. 


202 


CHAPTER  EIGHT 

FAVOURITE    THEMES 

EVERY  one  who  has  heard  O.  Henry's  stories  talked 
about  or  has  talked  about  them  himself  will  recall  or 
admit  the  frequent  recurrence  of  some  such  expression 
as,  *'I  can't  remember  the  name  of  the  story  but  the 
point  is  this."  Then  will  follow  the  special  bit  of 
philosophy,  the  striking  trait  of  human  nature,  the 
new  aspect  of  an  old  truth,  the  novel  revelation  of 
character,  the  wider  meaning  given  to  a  current  saying, 
or  whatever  else  it  may  be  that  constitutes  the  point 
or  underlying  theme  of  the  story.  Of  no  other  stories 
is  it  said  or  could  it  be  said  so  frequently,  "The  point 
is  this,"  because  no  other  writer  of  stories  has,  I 
think,  touched  upon  such  an  array  of  interesting 
themes. 

Most  of  those  who  have  commented  upon  O.  Henry's 
work  have  singled  out  his  technique,  especially  his  un- 
expected endings,  as  his  distinctive  contribution  to  the 
American  short  story.  "I  cannot  drop  this  topic,"  says 
Professor  Walter  B.  Pitkin,  author  of  "The  Art  and  the 
Business  of  Story  Writing,"  "without  urging  the  student 
to  study  carefully  the  maturer  stories  of  0.  Henry, 

203 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

who  surpasses  all  writers,  past  and  present,  in  his 
mastery  of  the  direct  denouement." 

The  unexpected  ending,  however,  is  not,  even  tech- 
nically, the  main  point  in  the  structural  excellence  of 
a  short  story.  Skill  here  marks  only  the  convergence 
and  culmination  of  structural  excellencies  that  have 
stamped  the  story  from  the  beginning.  The  crack  of  the 
whip  at  the  end  is  a  mechanical  feat  as  compared  with 
the  skilful  manipulation  that  made  it  possible.  Walter 
Pater  speaks  somewhere — and  O.  Henry's  best  stories 
are  perfect  illustrations — of  "that  architectural  con- 
ception of  the  work  which  perceives  the  end  in  the 
beginning  and  never  loses  sight  of  it,  and  in  every  part 
is  conscious  of  all  the  rest,  till  the  last  sentence  does 
but,  with  undiminished  vigor,  unfold  and  justify  the 
first."  In  fact,  it  is  not  the  surprise  at  the  end  that 
reveals  the  technical  jnastery  of  O.  Henry  or  of  Poe  or 
of  De  Maupassant.  It  is  rather  the  instantly  succeed- 
ing second  surprise  that  there  should  have  been  a  first 
surprise:  it  is  the  clash  of  the  unexpected  but  inevitable. 

It  is  not  technique,  however,  that  has  given  O.  Henry 
his  wide  and  widening  vogue.  Technique  starts  no 
after-tones.  It  flashes  and  is  gone.  It  makes  no 
pathways  for  reflection.  If  a  story  leaves  a  residuum, 
it  is  a  residuum  of  theme,  bared  and  vivified  by  tech- 
nique but  not  created  by  it.  It  is  O.  Henry's  distinc- 
tion that  he  has  enlarged  the  area  of  the  American  short 
204 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

story  by  enriching  and  diversifying  its  social  themes. 
In  his  hands  the  short  story  has  become  the  organ  of  a 
social  consciousness  more  varied  and  multiform  than  it 
had  ever  expressed  before.  Old  Sir  John  Davies  once 
said  of  the  soul  that  it  was : 

Much  like  a  subtle  spider  which  doth  sit 

In  middle  of  her  web,  which  spreadeth  wide; 

If  aught  do  touch  the  utmost  thread  of  it, 
She  feels  it  instantly  on  every  side. 

So  was  O.  Henry.  Whether  in  North  Carolina  or 
Texas  or  Latin  America  or  New  York  an  instant  re- 
sponsiveness to  the  humour  or  the  pathos  or  the  mere 
human  interest  of  men  and  women  playing  their  part 
in  the  drama  of  life  was  always  his-  distinguishing  char- 
acteristic. It  was  not  merely  that  he  observed  closely. 
Beneath  the  power  to  observe  and  the  skill  to  reproduce 
lay  a  passionate  interest  in  social  phenomena  which 
with  him  no  other  interest  ever  equalled  or  ever  threat- 
ened to  replace. 

Man  in  solitude  made  little  appeal  to  0.  Henry, 
though  he  had  seen  much  of  solitude  himself.  But 
man  in  society,  his  "humours"  in  the  old  sense,  his 
whims  and  vagaries,  his  tragedies  and  comedies  and 
tragi-comedies,  his  conflicts  with  individual  and  in- 
stitutional forces,  his  complex  motives,  the  good  under- 
lying the  evil,  the  ideal  lurking  potent  but  unsuspected 
within — whatever  entered  as  an  essential  factor  into 

205 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

the  social  life  of  men  and  women  wrought  a  sort  of  spell 
upon  O.  Henry  and  found  increasing  expression  in  his 
art.  It  was  not  startling  plots  that  he  sought:  it  was 
human  nature  themes,  themes  beckoning  to  him  from 
the  life  about  him  but  not  yet  wrought  into  short  story 
form. 

Take  the  theme  that  O.  Henry  calls  *' turning  the 
tables  on  Haroun  al  Raschid."  It  emerges  first  in 
"While  the  Auto  Waits,"  pubhshed  in  May,  1903,  a 
month  after  "A  Retrieved  Reformation."  As  if  afraid 
that  his  pen-name  was  becoming  unduly  prominent, 
O.  Henry  signs  the  story  James  L.  Bliss.  "We  do  not 
know  who  James  Bliss  is,"  wrote  the  critic  of  the  New 
York  Times.  "The  name  is  a  new  one  to  us.  But  we 
defy  any  one  to  produce  a  French  short  story  writer 
of  the  present  day  who  is  capable  of  producing  anything 
finer  than  'While  the  Auto  Waits.'"  O.  Henry  had 
discovered  a  little  unexploited  corner  of  human  nature 
which  he  was  further  to  develop  and  diversify  in  "The 
Caliph  and  the  Cad,"  "The  Caliph,  Cupid,  and  the 
Clock,"  "Lost  on  Dress  Parade,"  and  "Transients  in 
Arcadia." 

The  psychology  is  sound.  Shakespeare  would  have 
sanctioned  it. 

Look,  what  thy  soul  holds  dear,  imagine  it 
To  lie  the  way  thou  go'st,  not  whence  thou  comest. 
206 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 
Browning's  Pippa  would  have  approved. 

For  am  I  not,  this  day, 
Whate'er  I  please?    What  shaU  I  please  to-day? 
My  morn,  noon,  eve  and  night— how  spend  my  day? 
To-morrow  I  must  be  Pippa  who  winds  silk, 
The  whole  year  round,  to  earn  just  bread  and  milk: 
But,  this  one  day,  I  have  leave  to  go, 
And  play  out  my  fancy's  fullest  games. 

If  Haroun  al  Raschid  found  it  diverting  to  wander  in- 
cognito among  his  poor  subjects,  why  should  not  "the 
humble  and  poverty-stricken"  of  this  more  modern  and 
self-expressive  age  play  the  ultra-rich  once  in  a  while? 
They  do,  but  they  had  lacked  a  spokesman  till  O. 
Henry  appeared  for  them.  He,  by  the  way,  goes  with 
them  in  spirit  and  they  all  return  to  their  tasks  happy 
and  refreshed.  They  have  given  their  imagination  a 
surf  bath. 

Habit  is  another  favourite  theme.  A  man  believes 
that  he  has  conquered  a  certain  deeply  rooted  habit,  or 
hopes  he  has.  By  a  decisive  act  or  experience  he  puts 
a  certain  stage  of  his  life,  as  he  thinks,  behind  him. 
O.  Henry  is  not  greatly  interested  in  how  he  does  this: 
he  may  change  from  a  drifting  tramp  to  a  daring  desper- 
ado; he  may  marry;  he  may  undergo  an  emotional  ref- 
ormation which  seems  to  run  a  line  of  cleavage  between 

the  old  life  and  the  new;  a  woman  may  bid  farewell  to 

207 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

her  position  as  cashier  in  a  downtown  restaurant  and 
enter  the  ranks  of  the  most  exclusive  society. 

But,  however  the  break  with  the  past  comes  about, 
O.  Henry  is  profoundly  interested  in  the  possibilities  of 
relapse.  Such  stories,  to  mention  them  in  the  order  of 
their  writing,  as  "The  Passing  of  Black  Eagle,"  "A 
Comedy  in  Rubber,"  "From  the  Cabby's  Seat,"  "The 
Pendulum,"  "The  Romance  of  a  Busy  Broker,"  "The 
Ferry  of  Unfulfilment,"  "The  Girl  and  the  Habit," 
and  "The  Harbinger"  would  form  an  interesting  pen- 
dant to  William  James's  epochal  essay  on  habit.  In- 
deed I  have  often  wondered  whether  the  great  psycholo- 
gist's fondness  for  O.  Henry  was  not  due,  in  part  at 
least,  to  the  freshness  and  variety  of  the  story  teller's 
illustrations  of  mental  traits  and  mental  whimsies. 
No  one,  at  any  rate,  can  read  the  stories  mentioned 
without  concluding  that  O.  Henry  had  at  least  one 
conviction  about  habit.  It  is  that  when  the  old  environ- 
ment comes  back  the  old  habit  is  pretty  sure  to  come 
with  it. 

Of  these  particular  stories,  "The  Pendulum"  makes 
unquestionably  the  deepest  impression.  O.  Henry  at 
first  called  it  "Katy  of  Frogmore  Flats"  but  reconsid- 
ered and  gave  it  its  present  name,  thus  indicating  that 
the  story  is  a  dramatization  of  the  measured  to-and-fro, 
the  monotonous  tick-toch  of  a  life  dominated  by  routine. 
"The  Pendulum"  should  be  read  along  with  the  story 
208 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

by  De  Maupassant  called  "An  Artist."  Each  has  habit 
as  its  central  theme,  and  the  two  reveal  the  most  char- 
acteristic differences  of  their  authors.  In  the  setting, 
the  tone,  the  story  proper,  the  conversations,  the  char- 
acters, the  attitude  of  the  author  to  his  work,  there 
is  hardly  an  element  of  the  modern  short  story  that  Is 
not  sharply  contrasted  In  these  two  little  masterpieces, 
neither  of  which  numbers  two  thousand  words. 

"Man  lives  hy  habits  Indeed,  but  what  he  lives  for 
Is  thrills  and  excitements."  These  words  are  Professor 
James's,*  not  O.  Henry's,  but  O.  Henry  would  have 
heartily  applauded  them.  "What's  around  the  corner " 
seems  at  first  glance  too  vague  or  too  Inclusive  to  be 
labelled  a  distinctive  theme.  But  It  was  distinctive 
with  O.  Henry,  distinctive  in  his  conduct,  distinctive 
In  his  art.  What  was  at  first  felt  to  be  an  Innate  Im- 
pulse, potent  but  Indefinable,  came  later  to  be  resolutely 
probed  for  short  story  material.  "At  every  corner," 
he  writes,t  "handkerchiefs  drop,  fingers  beckon,  ej^es 
besiege,  and  the  lost,  the  lonely,  the  rapturous,  the 
mysterious,  the  perilous,  changing  clues  of  adventure 
are  slipped  into  our  fingers.  But  few  of  us  are  willing  to 
hold  and  follow  them.  We  are  grown  stiff  with  the 
ramrod  of  convention  down  our  backs.     We  pass  on; 


♦  "Memories  and  Studies,"  page  303. 
t "The  Green  Door." 

209 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

and  some  day  we  come,  at  the  end  of  a  veiy  dull  life, 
to  reflect  that  our  romance  has  been  a  pallid  thing  of  a 
marriage  or  two,  a  satin  rosette  kept  in  a  safe-deposit 
drawer,  and  a  lifelong  feud  with  a  steam  radiator." 

From  "The  Enchanted  Kiss,"  written  in  prison,  to 
"The  Venturers,"  written  a  year  before  his  death,  one 
may  trace  the  footprints  of  characters  who,  in  dream  or 
vision,  in  sportive  fancy  or  earnest  resolve,  traverse  the 
far  boundaries  of  life,  couching  their  lances  for  routine 
in  all  of  its  shapes,  seeking  "a  subject  without  a  predi- 
cate, a  road  without  an  end,  a  question  without  an 
answer,  a  cause  without  an  effect,  a  gulf  stream  in  life's 
ocean."  Fate,  destiny,  romance,  adventure,  the  lure 
of  divergent  roads,  the  gleam  of  mysterious  signals,  the 
beckonings  of  the  Big  City — these  are  the  signs  to  be 
followed.  They  may  lead  you  astray  but  you  will  at 
least  have  had  the  zest  of  pursuit  without  the  satiety 
of  conquest. 

"Nearly  all  of  us,"  says  O.  Henry,  of  the  unheroic 
hero  of  "The  Enchanted  Kiss,"  "have,  at  some  point 
in  our  lives — either  to  excuse  our  own  stupidity  or 
placate  our  consciences — promulgated  some  theory  of 
fatalism.  We  have  set  up  an  intelligent  Fate  that 
works  by  codes  and  signals.  Tansey  had  done  likewise; 
and  now  he  read,  through  the  night's  incidents,  the 
finger-prints  of  destiny.  Each  excursion  that  he  had 
made  had  led  to  the  one  paramount  finale — to  Katie 
210 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

and  that  kiss,  which  survived  and  grew  strong  and  in- 
toxicating in  his  memory.  Clearly,  Fate  was  holding 
up  to  him  the  mirror  that  night,  calhng  him  to  observe 
what  awaited  him  at  the  end  of  whichever  road  he 
might    take.     He    immediately    turned,    and    hurried 

homeward." 

Fate  did  her  part  but  Tansey,  a  "recreant  follower 
of  destiny,"  did  not  do  his.  In  his  absinthe-born 
dreams  he  had  tried  two  roads  and  found  knightly  ex- 
ploits and  Katie's  lips  waiting  for  him  at  the  end  of  each. 
Now,  though  unaided  by  absinthe,  it  is  no  wonder  that 
he  takes  confidently  the  homeward  road,  the  road  lead- 
ing to  the  Peek  boarding-house.     Katie  was  waiting, 

but— 

The  fault,  dear  Brutus,  is  not  in  our  stars. 
But  in  ourselves  that  we  are  underlings. 

"The  Roads  of  Destiny,"  the  most  carefully  wrought 
out  of  O.  Henry's  longer  stories,  is  an  answer  to  the 
question  with  which  it  begins: 

I  go  to  seek  on  many  roads 

What  is  to  be. 
True  heart  and  strong,  with  love  to  light- 
Will  they  not  bear  me  in  the  fight 
To  order,  shun  or  wield  or  mould 

My  Destiny? 

The  answer  is:  No.     Take  what  road  you  please,  the 

right  or  the  left  or  the  home-faring,  the  same  destiny 

211 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

awaits  you.     You  cannot   "order,   shun  or  wield  or 
mould"  it.     The  story  has  an  Alexander  Dumas  ex- 
terior, a  Poe  structure,  and  an  Omar  Khayyam  interior. 
In  "The  Roads  We  Take,"  Shark  Dodson  says: 

I  was  born  on  a  farm  in  Ulster  County,  New  York.  I  ran 
away  from  home  when  I  was  seventeen.  It  was  an  accident  my 
comin'  West.  I  was  walkin'  along  the  road  with  my  clothes  in 
a  bundle,  makin'  for  New  York  City.  I  had  an  idea  of  goin' 
there  and  makin'  lots  of  money.  I  always  felt  like  I  could  do  it. 
I  came  to  a  place  one  evenin'  where  the  road  forked  and  I  didn't 
know  which  fork  to  take.  I  studied  about  it  for  half  an  hour, 
and  then  I  took  theleft-hand.  That  night  I  run  into  the  camp  of 
a  Wild  West  show  that  was  travelin'  among  the  little  towns,  and 
I  went  West  with  it.  I've  often  wondered  if  I  wouldn't  have 
turned  out  different  if  I'd  took  the  other  road. 

The  reply  sums  up  O.  Henry's  last  word  on  fate, 
destiny,  and  roads: 

"Oh,  I  reckon  you'd  have  ended  up  about  the  same,"  said  Bob 
Tidball,  cheerfully  philosophical.  "It  ain't  the  roads  we  take; 
it's  what's  inside  of  us  that  makes  us  turn  out  the  way  we  do." 

It  was  certainly  so  with  Shark  Dodson.  He  "  wouldn't 
have  turned  out  different."  He  only  dreamed  that 
he  took  the  left-hand  road  and  became  the  murderer 
of  his  friend.  He  took,  in  fact,  the  right-hand  road, 
came  to  New  York,  and  became  a  Wall  Street  broker. 
But  on  awaking  from  his  dream  he  sacrificed  a  friend 
212 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

to  inexorable  cupidity,  thus  doing  as  a  broker  what  he 
dreamed  that  he  had  done  as  a  bandit. 

In  "The  Complete  Life  of  John  Hopkins,"  fate  and 
destiny  give  place  to  pure  romance.  "There  is  a 
saying,"  begins  the  author,  "that  no  man  has  tasted  the 
full  flavor  of  life  until  he  has  known  poverty,  love,  and 
war."  But  the  three  dwell  in  the  city  rather  than  in 
the  country: 

In  the  Big  City  large  and  sudden  things  happen.  You  round  a 
corner  and  thrust  the  rib  of  your  umbrella  into  the  eye  of  your 
old  friend  from  Kootenai  Falls.  You  stroll  out  to  pluck  a  Sweet 
WilHam  in  the  park — and  lo!  bandits  attack  you — ^you  are  am- 
bulanced  to  the  hospital — you  marry  your  nurse;  are  divorced — 
get  squeezed  while  short  on  U.  P.  S.  and  D.  O.  W.  N.  S. — stand  in 
the  bread  line — marry  an  heiress,  take  out  your  laundry  and  pay 
your  club  dues — seemingly  all  in  the  wink  of  an  eye.  You  travel 
the  streets,  and  a  finger  beckons  to  you,  a  handkerchief  is  dropped 
for  you,  a  brick  is  dropped  upon  you,  the  elevator  cable  or  your 
bank  breaks,  a  table  d'hote  or  your  wife  disagrees  with  you,  and 
Fate  tosses  you  about  like  cork  crumbs  in  wine  opened  by  an 
un-feed  waiter.  The  City  is  a  sprightly  youngster,  and  you  are 
red  paint  upon  its  toy,  and  you  get  licked  off. 

John  Hopkins  experienced  poverty,  love,  and  war 
between  the  lighting  and  relighting  of  a  five-cent  cigar. 
But  they  were  thrust  upon  him.  He  was  no  true  adven- 
turer. The  first  true  adventurer  is  Rudolf  Steiner  of 
"The  Green  Door."     Here  is  the  test: 

Suppose  you  should  be  walking  down  Broadway  after  dinner 
with  ten  minutes  allotted  to  the  consummation  of  your  cigar 

213 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

while  you  are  choosing  between  a  diverting  tragedy  and  something 
serious  in  the  way  of  vaudeville.  Suddenly  a  hand  is  laid  upon 
your  arm.  You  turn  to  look  into  the  thrilling  eyes  of  a  beautiful 
woman,  wonderful  in  diamonds  and  Russian  sables.  She  thrusts 
hurriedly  into  your  hand  an  extremely  hot  buttered  roll,  flashes 
out  a  tiny  pair  of  scissors,  snips  off  the  second  button  of  your 
overcoat,  meaningly  ejaculates  the  one  word,  "parallelogram!" 
and  swiftly  flies  down  a  cross  street,  looking  back  fearfully  over 
her  shoulder. 

That  would  be  pure  adventure.  Would  you  accept  it?  Not 
you.  You  would  flush  with  embarrassment;  you  would  sheep- 
ishly drop  the  roll  and  continue  down  Broadway,  fumbling  feebly 
for  the  missing  button.  This  you  would  do  unless  you  are  one  of 
the  blessed  few  in  whom  the  pure  spirit  of  adventure  is  not  dead. 


But  the  venturer  is  a  finer  fellow  than  the  adventurer, 
and  in  "The  Venturers"  O.  Henry  tilts  for  the  last  time 
at  a  theme  which,  if  health  had  not  failed,  says  Mr.  Gil- 
man  Hall,  would  have  drawn  from  him  many  more 
stories.  In  a  little  bacldess  notebook  which  O.  Henry 
used  in  New  York  I  find  the  jotting  from  which  "The 
Venturers"  grew.  The  notebook  kept  in  Columbus 
gives  only  the  titles  of  completed  stories  and  the  names 
of  the  magazines  to  which  they  were  forwarded.  The 
New  York  notebook  mentions  no  magazines  but  con- 
tains  in  most  cases  only  the  bare  theme  or  motif  that 
was  later  to  be  elaborated  into  a  story.  Many  of 
these  jottings  proved  unmanageable  and  left  no  story 
issue.  But  "The  Venturers"  harks  back  to  this  entrj^ 
the  last  in  the  book:  "Followers  of  chance — Two 
214 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

knights-errant — One    leaves    girl    and    other    marries 
her  for  what  may  be  'around  the  corner.'  " 

Of  the  two  characters  in  the  story,  Forster  and  Ives, 
the  latter  is  the  better  talker.  The  essayist  in  O.  Henry 
never  appeared  to  better  advantage  than  in  the  re- 
sourceful way  in  which  Ives  is  made  to  expound  the 
nature  of  a  venturer: 


I  am  a  man  who  has  made  a  lifetime  search  after  the  to-be- 
continued-in-our-next.  I  am  not  hke  the  ordinary  adventurer 
who  strikes  for  a  coveted  prize.  Nor  yet  am  I  Uke  a  gambler  who 
knows  he  is  either  to  win  or  lose  a  certain  set  stake.  What  I 
want  is  to  encounter  an  adventure  to  which  I  can  predict  no  con- 
clusion. It  is  the  breath  of  existence  to  me  to  dare  Fate  in  its 
blindest  manifestations.  The  world  has  come  to  run  so  much  by 
rote  and  gravitation  that  you  can  enter  upon  hardly  any  footpath 
of  chance  to  which  you  do  not  find  signboards  informing  you  of 
what  you  may  expect  at  its  end.  .  .  .  Only  a  few  times 
have  I  met  a  true  venturer — one  who  does  not  ask  a  schedule  and 
map  from  Fate  when  he  begins  a  journey.  But,  as  the  world  be- 
comes more  civilized  and  wiser,  the  more  difficult  it  is  to  come  upon 
an  adventiu"e  the  end  of  which  you  cannot  foresee.  In  the  Eliz- 
abethan days  you  could  assault  the  watch,  wring  knockers  from 
doors  and  have  a  jolly  set-to  with  the  blades  in  any  convenient 
angle  of  a  wall  and  "get  away  with  it."  Nowadays,  if  you  speak 
disrespectfully  to  a  policeman,  all  that  is  left  to  the  most  romantic 
fancy  is  to  conjecture  in  what  particular  police  station  he  will 
land  you.  .  .  .  Things  are  not  much  better  abroad  than 
they  are  at  home.  The  whole  world  seems  to  be  overrun  by  con- 
clusions. The  only  thing  that  interests  me  greatly  is  a  premise. 
I've  tried  shooting  big  game  in  Africa.  I  know  what  an  express 
rifle  will  do  at  so  many  yards;  and  when  an  elephant  or  a  rhi- 
noceros falls  to  the  bullet,  I  enjoy  it  about  as  much  as  I  did  when 

215 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

I  was  kept  in  after  school  to  do  a  sum  in  long  division  on  tlie 
blackboard.  .  .  .  The  sun  has  risen  on  the  Arabian  nights. 
There  are  no  more  caliphs.  The  fisherman's  vase  is  turned  to 
a  vacuum  bottle,  warranted  to  keep  any  genie  boiling  or  frozen 
for  forty-eight  hours.  Life  moves  by  rote.  Science  has  killed 
adventure.  There  are  no  more  opportunities  such  as  Columbus 
and  the  man  who  ate  the  first  oyster  had.  The  only  certain 
thing  is  that  there  is  nothing  uncertain. 


In  fact,  the  central  idea  of  "The  Venturers,"  the 
revolt  against  the  calculable,  seems  at  times  to  run 
away  with  the  story  itself.  Ives  marries  Miss  Marsden 
at  last  because  he  became  convinced  that  marriage  is 
the  greatest  "venture"  of  all.  But  what  convinced 
him?  The  expository  part  of  the  narrative  has  put 
the  emphasis  elsewhere.  The  centre  of  the  story  seems 
not  quite  in  the  middle. 

Another  theme,  one  that  0.  Henry  has  almost  pre- 
empted, is  the  shop-girl. 


Five  years — the  pencil  and  the  yellow  pad 
Are  laid  away.     Our  changes  run  so  swift 
That  many  newer  pinnacles  now  hft 
Above  the  old  four  million  he  made  glad. 
But  still  the  heart  of  his  well-loved  Bagdad 
Upon-the-Subway  is  to  him  renewed. 
He  knew,  beneath  her  harmless  platitude. 
The  gentler  secrets  that  the  shop-girl  had.* 


*Mr.  Christopher  Morley  in  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  June  5,  1915. 

216 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

Mr.  Nicholas  Vacliel  Lindsay  calls  him  "  the  little  shop- 
girl's knight": 

And  be  it  said,  'mid  these  his  pranks  so  odd. 
With  something  nigh  to  chivalry  he  trod, 
And  oft  the  drear  and  driven  would  defend — 
The  little  shop-girl's  knight,  unto  the  end.* 

Certainly  no  other  American  writer  has  so  identified 
himseK  with  the  life  problems  of  the  shop-girl  in  New 
York  as  has  O.  Henry.  In  his  thinking  she  was  an 
inseparable  part  of  the  larger  life  of  the  city.  She 
belonged  to  the  class  that  he  thought  of  as  under  a 
strain  and  his  interest  in  her  welfare  grew  with  his 
knowledge  of  the  conditions  surrounding  her.  "  Across 
every  counter  of  the  New  York  department  store," 
writes  Mr.  Arthur  Bartlett  Maurice,  f  "is  the  shadow  of 
O.  Henry."  It  has  been  said  that  O.  Henry  laughs 
with  the  shop-girl  rather  than  at  her,  but  the  truth  is 
that  he  does  not  laugh  at  all  when  she  is  his  theme; 
he  smiles  here  and  there  but  the  smile  is  at  the  humours 
of  life  itself  rather  than  at  the  shop-girl  in  particular. 

His  first  shop-girl  story,  *'A  Lickpenny  Lover,"  was 
written  in  the  summer  of  1904.  There  are  thousands 
of  working  girls  in  New  York  whose  world  is  bounded 
by  Coney  Island.     From  some  such  commonplace  of 


•"The  Knight  in  Disguise"  (the  American  Magazine,  June,  1912). 
\1Yx  Bookman,  New  York,  January,  1916. 

217 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

daily  speech  O.  Henry  took  his  cue.  Masie,  a  shop-girl, 
is  courted  by  Irving  Carter,  artist,  millionaire,  traveller, 
poet,  gentleman.  He  had  fallen  in  love  at  first  sight. 
When  he  asks  if  he  may  call  at  her  home  she  laughs  and 
proposes  a  meeting  at  the  corner  of  Eighth  Avenue  and 
Forty-eighth  Street.     He  is  troubled  but  accepts. 

Carter  did  not  know  the  shop-girl.  He  did  not  know  that  her 
home  is  often  either  a  scarcely  habitable  tiny  room  or  a  domicile 
filled  to  overflowing  with  kith  and  kin.  The  street-corner  is  her 
parlor,  the  park  is  her  drawing-room,  the  avenue  is  her  garden 
walk;  yet  for  the  most  part  she  is  as  inviolate  mistress  of  herself 
in  them  as  is  my  lady  inside  her  tapestried  chamber. 

Two  weeks  later  he  courts  her  with  all  the  ardour 
of  his  nature  and  all  the  resources  of  his  vocabulary. 
"Marry  me,  Masie,"  he  whispered,  "and  we  will  go 
away  from  this  ugly  city  to  beautiful  ones.  I  know 
where  I  should  take  you,"  and  he  launched  into  an 
impassioned  picturing  of  palaces,  towers,  gondolas, 
India  and  her  ancient  cities,  Hindoos,  Japanese  gar- 
dens— but  Masie  had  risen  to  her  feet.  The  next 
morning  she  scornfully  remarked  to  her  chum  Lu: 
"What  do  you  think  that  fellow  wanted  me  to  do? 
He  wanted  me  to  marry  him  and  go  down  to  Coney 
Island  for  a  wedding  tour!" 

So  the  Hostess  in  "Henry  V"  thought  that  the  dying 
Falstaff  only  "babbled  of  green  fields,"  but  he  was  re- 
peating or  trying  to  repeat  the  Twenty- third  Psalm. 
218 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

Words  meant  to  Masie  and  to  the  poor  Hostess  only 
what  their  experience  would  let  them  mean.  And 
words  mean  no  more  than  that  to  any  of  us.  The 
pathos  as  well  as  the  humour  of  speech  as  a  social 
instrument  is  that  the  appeal  of  every  word  is  measured 
not  by  its  formal  definition  but  by  our  orbit  of  experi- 
ence and  association.  The  tragedy  of  the  circumscribed 
life  is  not  that  it  occasionally  mistakes  the  imitation 
world  for  the  real  world  but  that  the  imitation  world  is 
its  all.  There  is  humour  in  the  story  but  it  is  close 
to  pathos.  It  is  furnished  by  life  rather  than  by 
Masie. 

"The  Lickpenny  Lover"  was  followed  by  four  stories 
which  established  O.  Henry's  right  to  be  called  the 
knight  of  the  shop-girl.  These  stories  are  constructive 
in  aim  and  are  energized  by  a  mingled  sympathy  and 
indignation  that  recall  Dickens  on  every  page.  In  the 
first,  "Elsie  in  New  York,"  O.  Henry,  recognizing  that 
he  is  in  Dickensland,  ends  the  story  not  with  a  sudden 
surprise  but  with  a  quotation  from  "him  of  Gad's  Hill, 
before  whom,  if  you  doff  not  your  hat,  you  shall  stand 
with  a  covered  pumpkin": 

Lost,  Your  Excellency.  Lost,  Associations  and  Societies.  Lost, 
Right  Reverends  and  Wrong  Reverends  of  every  order.  Lost, 
Reformers  and  Lawmakers,  born  with  heavenly  compassion  in 
your  hearts,  but  with  the  reverence  of  money  in  your  souls.  And 
lost  thus  around  us  every  day. 

219 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

But  where  Dickens  wrote  "Dead,"  O.  Henry  writes 
"Lost."  It  is  the  keyword  to  all  of  these  stories.  Elsie 
was  lost  before  she  became  a  shop-girl.  She  was  only 
seeking  a  position,  and  she  found  three.  But  at  the 
very  threshold  of  each  she  was  met  and  shooed  away 
by  the  agent  of  some  self-styled  charitable  organization. 
"But  what  am  I  to  do.'^"  asks  Elsie.  The  agents  had 
nothing  to  suggest.  They  knew  nothing  more  than 
that  the  places  had  been  ticketed  as  potentially  bad. 
They  could  only  say  "Go,"  not  "Come."  If  one  had 
forgotten  the  name  of  this  story  he  would  doubtless  say 
and  say  rightly:  "The  point  of  it  is  that  many  chari- 
table organizations  of  New  York  are  very  successful  in 
preventing  girls  from  securing  positions  but  do  nothing 
to  secure  other  positions  for  them." 

In  "The  Guilty  Party,  an  East  Side  Tragedy,"  Liz 
drifts  to  the  street  and  ruin  because  her  father  would  do 
nothing  to  make  home  attractive  for  her.  She  is  not  a 
shop-girl  but  she  belongs  here:  she  is  one  of  the  lost 
whom  the  world  judged  wrongly.  The  action  of  the 
story  begins: 

A  little  girl  of  twelve  came  up  timidly  to  the  man  reading  and 
resting  by  the  window,  and  said : 

"Papa,  won't  you  play  a  game  of  checkers  with  me  if  you  aren't 
too  tired?" 

The  red-haired,  unshaven,  untidy  man,  sitting  shoeless  by  the 
window,  answered  with  a  frown: 

"Checkers!    No,  I  won't.    Can't  a  man  who  works  hard  all 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

day  have  a  little  rest  when  he  comes  home?  Why  don't  you  go 
out  and  play  with  the  other  kids  on  the  sidewalk?" 

The  woman  who  was  cooking  came  to  the  door. 

"John,"  she  said,  "I  don't  like  for  Lizzie  to  play  in  the  street. 
They  learn  too  much  there  that  ain't  good  for  'em.  She's  been 
in  the  house  all  day  long.  It  seems  that  you  might  give  up  a 
little  of  your  time  to  amuse  her  when  you  come  home." 

"Let  her  go  out  and  play  like  the  rest  of  'em  if  she  wants  to  be 
amused,"  said  the  red-haired,  unshaven,  untidy  man,  "and  don't 
bother  me." 


Like  its  more  famous  successor,  "The  Guilty  Party" 
ends  in  a  dream.  The  case  is  tried  in  the  next  world. 
The  celestial  court-ofBcer  discharges  Liz,  though  she 
had  killed  her  betrayer  and  committed  suicide.  He 
then  pronounces  the  verdict: 


The  guilty  party  you've  got  to  look  for  in  this  case  is  a  red- 
haired,  unshaven,  untidy  man,  sitting  by  the  window  reading  in 
his  stocking  feet,  while  his  children  play  in  the  streets.  Get  a 
move  on  you. 

Now,  wasn't  that  a  silly  dream? 


"An  Unfinished  Story,"  framed  on  the  model  of 
"The  Guilty  Party,"  is  O.  Henry's  indictment  of  em- 
ployers who  cause  the  ruin  of  working  girls  by  under- 
paying them.  It  is  probably  the  most  admired  of 
O.  Henry's  stories.  In  the  ten  lists  of  the  ten  preferred 
stories  sent  to  the  Bookman*  this  story  of  less  than 

♦See  page  170. 

221 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

two  thousand  five  hundred  words  was  mentioned  seven 
times,  "A  Municipal  Report"  coming  next  with  six 
mentions.  Some  one  has  said  that  Dickens'  "Christ- 
mas Carol"  has  done  more  good  than  any  other  story 
ever  written.  As  the  years  go  by  will  not  the  "Christ- 
mas Carol"  be  overtaken  by  "An  Unfinished  Story?" 
It  was  not  hunger,  it  was  not  the  need  of  the  so-called 
necessities  that  wrecked  Dulcie's  life.  The  cause  lay 
deeper  than  that;  it  belonged  not  to  the  eternal -human 
but  to  the  eternal- womanly.  It  was  neither  food  nor 
clothing;  it  was  the  natural  love  of  adornment.  Dulcie 
received  $6  a  w^eek.  The  necessities  amounted  to  $4.76. 
"I  hold  my  pen  poised  in  vain,"  says  O.  Henry,  "when 
I  would  add  to  Dulcie's  life  some  of  those  joys  that 
belong  to  woman  by  virtue  of  all  the  unwritten,  sacred, 
natural,  inactive  ordinances  of  the  equity  of  heaven." 
There  is  no  crack  of  the  whip  at  the  end :  there  is  the  ring 
of  steel: 


As  I  said  before,  I  dreamed  that  I  was  standing  near  a  crowd  of 
prosperous-looking  angels,  and  a  policeman  took  me  by  the  wing 
and  asked  if  I  belonged  with  them. 

"Who  are  they.?"  I  asked. 

"Why,"  said  he,  "they  are  the  men  who  hired  working  girls, 
and  paid  'em  five  or  six  dollars  a  week  to  live  on.  Are  you  ozie  of 
the  bunch?" 

"Not  on  your  immortality,"  said  I.     "I'm  only  the  fellow  that 
set  fire  to  an  orphan  asylum,  and  murdered  a  blind  man  for  his 
pennies." 
222 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

In    "Brickdust    Row"    indictment    is    brought    not 
against  guardians  of  the  young  who  are  found  to  be 
prohibitive  rather  than  cooperative;  it  is  not  against  the 
careless  father,  nor  the  miserly  employer.     The  shaft  is 
aimed  at  the  owners  of  houses  tenanted  by  working 
girls.     These  houses,  having  no  parlours  or  reception 
rooms,   compel   the   occupants   to   meet   their  friends 
"  sometimes  on  the  boat,  sometimes  in  the  park,  some- 
times on  the  street."     Blinker,  another  Irving  Carter, 
falls  in  love  with  Florence,  another  Masie.     But  Flor- 
ence lives  in  Brickdust  Row.     "They  call  it  that,"  says 
Florence,   "because  there's  red  dust  from  the  bricks 
crumbling  over  everything.     I've  lived  there  for  more 
than  four  years.     There's  no  place  to  receive  company. 
You  can't  have  anybody  come  to  your  room.     What 
else  is  there  to  do.^     A  girl  has  got  to  meet  the  men, 
hasn't  she?     .     .     .     The  first  time  one  spoke  to  me 
on  the  street,  I  ran  home  and  cried  all  night.     But  you 
get  used  to  it.     I  meet  a  good  many  nice  fellows  at 
church.     I  go  on  rainy  days  and  stand  in  the  vestibule 
until  one  comes  up  with  an  umbrella.     I  wish  there 
was  a  parlour,  so  I  could  ask  you  to  call,  Mr.  Blinker." 
Blinker  owns  Brickdust  Row.     "Do  what  you  please 
with  it,"   he   says   to  his  lawyer   the   next  morning. 
"  Remodel  it,  burn  it,  raze  it  to  the  ground.     But,  man, 
it's  too  late  I  tell  you.     It's  too  late.     It's  too  late. 

It's  too  late." 

223 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

But  the  greatest  of  the  shop-girl  stories  as  a  story  is, 
to  my  thinking,  "The  Trimmed  Lamp."  It  is  the  only 
one  written  for  the  shop-girl  rather  than  about  her. 
But  it  is  not  for  her  alone;  it  is  for  all,  of  whatever  age 
or  sex,  who  work  at  tasks  not  commonly  rated  as  cul- 
tural. Much  has  been  said  and  written  in  recent  years 
about  "self-culture  through  the  vocation,"  but  nothing 
so  apt  and  adequate,  I  think,  as  this  little  story  about 
Nan  and  Lou  and  Dan.  Froude  touched  the  rim  of  it 
when  he  wrote,  fifty  years  ago: 


Every  occupation,  even  the  meanest — I  don't  say  the  scavenger's 
or  the  chimney-sweep's — but  every  productive  occupation  which 
adds  anything  to  the  capital  of  mankind,  if  followed  assiduously 
with  a  desire  to  understand  everything  connected  with  it,  is  an 
ascending  stair  whose  summit  is  nowhere,  and  from  the  successive 
steps  of  which  the  horizon  of  knowledge  perpetually  enlarges. 


But  Froude  limited  his  occupations  too  narrowly. 
He  did  not  quite  glimpse  the  vision  of  "The  Trimmed 
Lamp."  He  was  afraid  to  break  away  from  the  old 
and  minutely  graduated  scale  of  vocations  with  their 
traditional  degrees  of  respectability.  But  this  is  just 
what  "The  Trimmed  Lamp"  does.  It  dramatizes  the 
truth  that,  in  spite  of  inherited  divisions  and  sub- 
divisions, there  are  only  two  occupations  worth  thinking 
about,  and  these  are  one  too  many.  Everybody  who 
has  an  occupation  uses  it  as  a  means  of  subsisting  or  as 
224 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

a  means  of  growing,  as  a  treadmill  or  as  a  stairway,  as  a 
shut  door  or  as  an  open  window,  as  a  grindstone  or  as  a 
stepping-stone. 

Every  worker  may  learn  from  his  occupation,  "even 
the  meanest,"  the  difference  between  good  work  and 
bad  work  in  his  particular  calling.  But  the  difference 
between  good  work  and  bad  work  here  is  the  difference 
between  good  work  and  bad  work  everywhere.  Once 
erect  the  standard — and  it  may  be  erected  by  the  chim- 
ney-sweep as  well  as  by  the  artist — growth  is  assured. 
The  lever  of  Archimedes  finds  its  analogue  to-day 
in  such  a  conception  of  one's  work  as  moves  him  to 
say,  "I  will  examine  the  universe  as  it  is  related  to 
this."  Culture  is  not  in  the  job;  it  is  in  the  attitude 
to  the  job. 

Nan  illustrates  every  stage  in  the  upward  transition. 
"*The  Trimmed  Lamp,'"  said  O.  Henry,  "is  the  other 
side  of  'An  Unfinished  Story.'"  It  is  the  other  side  of 
all  the  stories  in  which  the  light  is  focussed  on  the  down- 
ward slope.  Nan  is  the  ascending  shop-girl.  Lou,  a 
piecework  ironer  in  a  hand  laundry,  is  her  antithesis. 
Dan  is  what  Coventry  Patmore  somewhere  calls  the 
punctiim  indifferens,  "the  point  of  rest."  He  is  what 
Kent  is  in  "King  Lear,"  Friar  Laurence  in  "Romeo  and 
Juliet,"  Horatio  in  "Hamlet."  "He  was  of  that  good 
kind,"  says  O.  Henry,  "that  you  are  likely  to  forget 
while  they  are  present,  but  to  remember  distinctly  after 

225 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

they  are  gone."  "Faithful?  Well,  he  was  on  hand 
when  Mary  would  have  had  to  hire  a  dozen  subpoena 
servers  to  find  her  lamb."  Lou  has  him  on  her  string 
at  first  but  casts  him  off. 

Three  months  pass.  Nancy  and  Lou  meet  acciden- 
tally on  the  border  of  a  little  quiet  park  and  Nancy 
notices  that  "prosperity  had  descended  upon  Lou, 
manifesting  itself  in  costly  furs,  flashing  gems,  and 
creations  of  the  tailors'  art." 

"Yes,  I'm  still  in  the  store,"  said  Nancy,  "but  I'm  going  to 
leave  it  next  week.  I've  made  my  catch — the  biggest  catch  in 
the  world.  You  won't  mind  now,  Lou,  will  you?  I'm  going  to 
be  married  to  Dan — to  Dan! — he's  my  Dan  now — why,  Lou!" 

Around  the  corner  of  the  park  strolled  one  of  those  new-crop, 
smooth-faced  young  policemen  that  are  making  the  force  more 
endurable — at  least  to  the  eye.  He  saw  a  woman  with  an  expen- 
sive fur  coat  and  diamond-ringed  hands  crouching  down  against 
the  iron  fence  of  the  park  sobbing  turbulently,  while  a  slender, 
plainly-dressed  working  girl  leaned  close,  trying  to  console  her. 
But  the  Gibsonian  cop,  being  of  the  new  order,  passed  on,  pre- 
tending not  to  notice,  for  he  was  wise  enough  to  know  that  these 
matters  are  beyond  help,  so  far  as  the  power  he  represents  is  con- 
cerned, though  he  rap  the  pavement  with  his  nightstick  tiU  the 
sound  goes  up  to  the  furthermost  stars. 

But  the  shop-girl  is  a  part  of  a  larger  theme  and  that 
theme  is  the  city. 

What  a  world  he  left  behind  him,  what 
a  web  of  wonder  tales. 
Fact  and  fiction  subtly  woven  on  the 
spinning  wheel  of  Truth! 
226 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

How  he  caught  the  key  of  Uving  in 
the  noises  of  the  to^vn, 
Major  music,  minor  dirges,  rhapsodies 
of  Age  and  Youth ! 
In  the  twihght  of  the  city,  as  I 
dreamed,  as  I  dreamed. 
Watching  that  eternal  drama  in  the 
ever-pulsing  street, 
All  about  me  seemed  to  murmur  of  the 
master  passed  away. 
And  his  requiem  was  sounded  in  the 
city's  fever  beat.* 

A  city  was  to  O.  Henry  not  merely  a  collective  entity, 
not  merely  an  individuality;  certainly  not  a  munici- 
pality: it  was  a  personality.  In  "The  Making  of  a 
New  Yorker,"  it  is  said  of  Haggles : 

He  studied  cities  as  women  study  their  reflections  in  mirrors;  as 
children  study  the  glue  and  sawdust  of  a  dislocated  doll;  as  the 
men  who  write  about  wild  animals  study  the  cages  in  the  zoo.  A 
city  to  Raggles  was  not  merely  a  pile  of  bricks  and  mortar,  peopled 
by  a  certain  number  of  inhabitants;  it  was  a  thing  with  a  soul, 
characteristic  and  distinct;  an  individual  conglomeration  of  life, 
with  its  own  peculiar  essence,  flavor,  and  feeling. 

The  words  are  as  true  of  O.  Henry  himself  as  any 
that  he  ever  wrote.  And  he  was  always  so.  Wlien  he 
was  eighteen  years  old,  six  of  us  went  on  a  camping 
trip  from  Greensboro  to  old  Pilot  Mountain  and  on  to 
the  Pinnacles  of  the  Dan.     Brief  stops  were  made  at 

*"0.  Henry:  In  Memoriam,"  by  Mr.  Elias  Lieberman. 

227 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

Kerners\alle,  Mount  Airy,  Danbury,  and  intervening 
villages.  O.  Henry,  it  is  needless  to  say,  was  the  life 
of  the  party  and,  though  much  has  been  forgotten, 
none  of  us  will  forget  his  peculiar  interest  in  these  little 
towns  or  his  quaint,  luminous,  incisive  comments  on 
them  as  we  drove  to  the  next  camping  place.  It  was 
not  so  much  the  intensity  of  his  interest  that  impressed 
us  or  that  lingers  in  the  memory  still.  It  was  that 
he  was  interested  at  all  in  places  so  much  smaller  and, 
as  we  thought,  less  worth  while  than  our  own  native 
Greensboro.  But  interested  he  was,  keenly  and  stead- 
fastly, and  in  every  book  that  he  has  written  towns 
and  cities  loom  large  in  his  survey  of  human 
life. 

His  Latin  American  stories  may  serve  as  illustrations. 
They  deal  sparingly  with  native  characters.  O.  Henry 
evidently  felt  some  hesitation  here,  for  in  his  rapid 
journey  from  Honduras  around  both  coasts  of  South 
America  the  unit  of  progress  was  the  coastal  town. 
There  was  little  time  to  study  native  character  as  he 
studied  it  on  his  own  soil.  The  city,  therefore,  rather 
than  the  citizen,  is  made  prominent.  An  American 
doctor,  for  example,  who  has  travelled  widely  in  Latin 
America,  considers  0.  Henry's  description  of  Espiritu 
unequalled  in  accuracy  and  vividness  as  a  sketch  of 
the  typical  Latin  American  coastal  town.  Certainly 
no  one  of  his  Latin  American  character  portraits  is 
228 


FAVOUrvITE  THEMES 

as   detailed   or   as   intimate.     Sully   Magoon   is   talk- 
ing: 

Take  a  lot  of  Filipino  huts  and  a  couple  of  hundred  brick-kilns 
and  arrange  'em  in  squares  in  a  cemetery.  Cart  down  all  the 
conservatory  plants  in  the  Astor  and  Vanderbdt  greenhouses, 
Td  !tick  'em  Lut  wherever  there's  room.  Turn  all  the  Bellevue 
;lnts  and  the  barbers'  convention  and  the  Tuskegee  schoo 
Lse  in  the  streets,  and  run  the  thermometer  up  to  120  m  the 
shade.  Set  a  fringe  of  the  Rocky  Mountams  around  the  rear, 
let  it  rain,  and  set  the  whole  business  on  Rockaway  Beach  m  the 
middle  of  January-and  you'd  have  a  good  imitation  of  Espintu. 

But  it  is  in  his  references  to  American  cities  that  O. 
Henry's  feeling  for  the  city  as  a  unit  is  best  revealed. 
It  has  been  said  of  George  Eliot  that  her  passion  for 
individualizing  was  so  great  that  a  character  is  rarely 
introduced  in  her  stories,  even  if  he  only  says  "Break- 
fast is  served,"  without  being  separated  in  some  way 
from  the  other  characters.     The  same  may  be  said  of 
O    Henry's  mention  of  American  towns  and  cities. 
Sometimes  the  differentiation  is  diffused  through  the 
story  from  beginning  to  end.     Sometimes  it  is  sum- 
marized in  a  phrase  or  paragraph.     Of  our  same  Rag- 
gles  it  is  said: 

Chicago  seemed  to  swoop  down  upon  him  with  a  breezy  sug- 
gestion of  Mrs.  Partington,  plumes,  and  patchouli,  and  to  disturb 
his  rest  with  a  soaring  and  beautiful  song  of  future  promise.  But 
Haggles  would  awake  to  a  sense  of  shivering  cold  and  a  haunting 

♦From  "On  Behalf  of  the  Management." . 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

impression  of  ideals  lost  in  a  depressing  aura  of  potato  salad  and 
fish. 

Pittsburg  impressed  him  as  the  play  of  "Othello"  performed 
in  the  Russian  language  in  a  raihoad  station  by  Dockstader's 
minstrels.  A  royal  and  generous  lady  this  Pittsburg,  though — 
homely,  hearty,  with  flushed  face,  washing  the  dishes  in  a  silk 
dress  and  white  kid  slippers,  and  bidding  Raggles  sit  before  the 
roaring  fireplace  and  drink  champagne  with  his  pigs'  feet  and  fried 
potatoes. 

New  Orleans  had  simply  gazed  down  upon  him  from  a  balcony. 
He  could  see  her  pensive,  starry  eyes  and  catch  the  flutter  of  her 
fan,  and  that  was  all.  Only  once  he  came  face  to  face  with  her. 
It  was  at  dawn,  when  she  was  flushing  the  red  bricks  of  the  ban- 
quette with  a  pail  of  water.  She  laughed  and  hummed  a  chan- 
sonette  and  filled  Raggles's  shoes  with  ice-cold  water.     Allons! 

Boston  construed  herself  to  the  poetic  Raggles  in  an  erratic 
and  singular  way.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  drunk  cold 
tea  and  that  the  city  was  a  white,  cold  cloth  that  had 
been  bound  tightly  around  his  brow  to  spur  him  to  some 
unknown  but  tremendous  mental  effort.  And,  after  all,  he  came 
to  shovel  snow  for  a  livelihood;  and  the  cloth,  becoming  wet, 
tightened  its  knots  and  could  not  be  removed. 

In  "A  Municipal  Report,"  O.  Henry  answers  the 
challenge  of  Frank  Norris  who  had  said: 

Fancy  a  novel  about  Chicago  or  Buffalo,  let  us  say,  or  Nashville, 
Tennessee!  There  are  just  three  big  cities  in  the  United  States 
that  are  "story  cities" — New  York,  of  course,  New  Orleans,  and. 
best  of  the  lot,  San  Francisco. 

O.  Henry  replies: 

But,  dear  cousins  all  (from  Adam  and  Eve  descended),  it  Is  a 
rash  one  who  will  lay  his  finger  on  the  map  and  say:  "In  this 
town  there  can  be  no  romance — what  could  happen  here?  Yes, 
230 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

it  is  a  bold  and  a  rash  deed  to  challenge  in  one  sentence  history, 
romance,  and  Rand  and  McNally. 

Then  follows  a  story  of  Nashville,  Tennessee,  which 
O.  Henry  had  visited  when  his  daughter  was  attending 
Belmont  College.  "For  me,"  writes  Mr.  Albert  Fred- 
erick Wilson,  of  New  York  University,  "it  is  the 
finest  example  of  the  short  story  ever  produced  in 
America."  "If  the  reader  is  not  satisfied,"  says  Mr. 
Stephen  Leacock,  after  attempting  to  summarize  "Jeff 
Peters  as  a  Personal  Magnet"  and  "The  Furnished 
Room,"  "let  him  procure  for  himself  the  story  called 
'A  Municipal  Report'  in  the  volume  'Strictly  Busi- 
ness.' After  he  has  read  it  he  will  either  pronounce 
O.  Henry  one  of  the  greatest  masters  of  modern  fiction 
or  else,  well,  or  else  he  is  a  jackass.  Let  us  put  it  that 
way." 

The  story  ends  on  the  note  with  which  it  began: 
"I  wonder  what's  doing  in  Buffalo .f^"  It  is  O.  Hemy's 
most  powerful  presentation  of  his  conviction  that  to 
the  seeing  eye  all  cities  are  story  cities.  It  is  the  appeal 
of  an  interpretative  genius  from  statistics  to  life,  from 
the  husks  of  a  municipality  as  gathered  by  Rand  and 
McNally  to  the  heart  of  a  city  as  seen  by  an  artist. 

But  it  happened  to  O.  Henry  as  it  had  happened  to 
Raggles : 

One  day  he  came  and  laid  siege  to  the  heart  of  the  great  city  of 
Manhattan.     She  was  the  greatest  of  all;  and  he  wanted  to  learn 

231 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

her  note  in  the  scale;  to  taste  and  appraise  and  classify  and  solve 
and  label  her  and  arrange  her  with  the  other  cities  that  had  given 
him  up  the  secret  of  their  individuality. 

In  "The  Voice  of  the  City,"  O.  Henry  approaches 
New  York  as  did  Haggles  via  other  cities : 

"I  must  go  and  find  out,"  I  said,  "what  is  the  Voice  of  this 
city.  Other  cities  have  voices.  It  is  an  assignment.  I  must 
have  it.  New  York,"  I  continued,  in  a  rising  tone,  "had  better 
not  hand  me  a  cigar  and  say:  'Old  man,  I  can't  talk  for  publica- 
tion.' No  other  city  acts  in  that  way.  Chicago  says,  unhesitat- 
ingly, *I  will';  Philadelphia  says,  *I  should';  New  Orleans  says,  'I 
used  to';  Louisville  says,  'Don't  care  if  I  do';  St.  Louis  says,  'Ex- 
cuse me';  Pittsburg  says,  'Smoke  up.'    Now,  New  York " 

O.  Henry's  synonyms  for  New  York  and  his  photo- 
graphic descriptions  of  special  streets  and  squares  have 
often  been  commented  upon.  Mr.  Arthur  Bartlett 
Maurice  says  again:* 

In  the  course  of  this  rambling  pilgrimage,  the  name  of  Sydney 
Porter  has  appeared,  and  will  very  likely  continue  to  appear,  two 
or  three  times  to  one  mention  of  any  other  one  writer.  This  is 
due  not  only  to  the  high  esteem  in  which  the  pilgrim  holds  the 
work  of  that  singular  and  gifted  man,  but  also  to  the  fact  that  the 
dozen  volumes  containing  the  work  of  O.  Henry  constitute  a  kind 
of  convenient  bank  upon  which  the  pilgrim  is  able  to  draw  in  the 
many  moments  of  emergency.  Perfect  frankness  is  a  weapon 
with  which  to  forestall  criticism,  and  so,  to  express  the  matter 


*  "The  New  York  of  the  Novelists:  The  Heart  of  O.  Henry  Land"  (the  Bookman.  New  York, 
Etecember,  1915). 

232 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

very  bluntly,  whenever  the  writer  finds  himself  in  a  street  or  a 
neighbourhood  about  which  there  is  little  apparent  to  say,  he 
turns  to  "The  Four  Million,"  or  "The  Trimmed  Lamp,"  or  "The 
Voice  of  the  City,"  or  "Whirhgigs,"  or  "Strictly  Business,"  and 
in  one  of  these  books  is  able  to  find  the  rescuing  allusion  or  descrip- 
tive line. 


But  0.  Henry's  study  went  far  deeper  than  "the 
rescuing  allusion  or  descriptive  line."  *'I  would  like 
to  live  a  lifetime,"  he  once  said  to  Mr.  Oilman  Hall, 
"on  each  street  in  New  York.  Every  house  has  a 
drama  in  it."  Indeed  the  most  distinctive  and  cer- 
tainly the  most  thought-provoking  aspect  of  O.  Henry's 
portrayal  of  New  York  is  not  to  be  found  in  his  descrip- 
tions. It  lies  rather  in  his  attempt  to  isolate  and  vivify 
the  character,  the  service,  the  function  of  the  city. 
Streets,  parks,  squares,  buildings,  even  the  multitu- 
dinous life  itself  that  flowed  ceaselessly  before  him  were 
to  him  but  the  outward  and  visible  signs  of  a  life,  a 
spirit,  that  informed  all  and  energized  all. 

But  what  was  it?  0.  Henry  would  seem  to  say, 
"It  is  not  a  single  element,  like  oxygen  or  hydrogen  or 
gold.  It  is  a  combination,  a  formula,  compounded  of 
several  elements."  In  "Squaring  the  Circle"  we  learn 
that  a  Kentucky  feud  of  forty  years'  standing  had  left 
but  a  single  member  of  each  family,  Cal  Harkness  and 
Sam  Folwell.  Cal  has  moved  to  New  York.  Sam, 
armed  to  the  teeth,  follows  him.     It  was  Sam's  first 

233 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

day  in  New  York.  Loneliness  smote  him;  a  fat  man 
wouldn't  answer  him;  a  policeman  told  him  to  move 
along;  an  immense  engine,  "running  without  mules," 
grazed  his  knee;  a  cab-driver  bumped  him  and  "ex- 
plained to  him  that  kind  words  were  invented  to  be 
used  on  other  occasions";  a  motorman  went  the  cab- 
driver  one  better;  a  large  lady  dug  an  elbow  into  his 
back.  But  at  last  the  bloody  and  implacable  foe  of 
his  kith  and  kin  is  seen. 


He  stopped  short  and  wavered  for  a  moment,  being  unarmed 
and  sharply  surprised.  But  the  keen  mountaineer's  eye  of  Sam 
Folwell  had  picked  him  out. 

There  was  a  sudden  spring,  a  ripple  in  the  stream  of  passers-by, 
and  the  sound  of  Sam's  voice  crying : 

"Howdy,  Cal !     I'm  durned  glad  to  see  ye." 

And  in  the  angles  of  Broadway,  Fifth  Avenue  and  Twenty-third 
Street  the  Cumberland  feudists  shook  hands. 


The  city  had  achieved  in  one  day  what  a  whole  State 
had  been  powerless  to  do  in  forty  years.  It  had  done 
the  impossible:  it  had  squared  the  circle.  No  mere 
description  could  set  New  York  forth  as  does  this  story. 
We  have  here  to  do  not  with  the  form  of  a  great  city 
but  with  its  function. 

Let  us  return  to  Haggles  once  more.  The  story  is 
*'  The  Making  of  a  New  Yorker."  Haggles  was  a  tramp. 
234 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 
His  specialty  was  cities.  But  New  York  was  impene- 
trable. 

Other  cities  had  been  to  him  as  long  primer  to  read;  as  country 
maidens  quickly  to  fathom;  as  send-price-of-subscription-with 
answer  rebuses  to  solve;  as  oyster  cocktails  to  swallow;  but  here 
was  one  as  cold,  glittering,  serene,  impossible  as  a  four-carat 
diamond  in  a  window  to  a  lover  outside  fingering  damply  in  his 
pocket  his  ribbon-counter  salary. 

The  greetings  of  the  other  cities  he  had  known — their  homespun 
kindliness,  their  human  gamut  of  rough  charity,  friend  y  curses, 
garrulous  curiosity,  and  easily  estimated  credulity  or  indifference. 
This  city  of  Manhattan  gave  him  no  clue;  it  was  walled  against 
him.  Like  a  river  of  adamant  it  flowed  past  him  in  the  streets. 
Never  an  eye  was  turned  upon  him;  no  voice  spoke  to  him.  His 
heart  yearned  for  the  clap  of  Pittsburg's  sooty  hand  on  his  shoul- 
der; for  Chicago's  menacing  but  social  yawp  in  his  ear;  for  the  pale 
and  eleemosynary  stare  through  the  Bostonian  eyeglass — even 
for  the  precipitate  but  unmalicious  boot-toe  of  Louisville  or  St. 
Louis. 


Three  types  of  character  seem  to  Haggles  about  all 
that  New  York  has:  the  elderly  rich  gentleman;  the 
beautiful,  steel-engraving  woman;  the  swaggering,  grim, 
threateningly  sedate  fellow;  but  all  are  heartless,  frigid, 
unconcerned.  He  hates  them  and  the  city  that  pro- 
duces them.  A  roar,  a  hiss,  a  crash — and  Haggles  has 
been  struck  by  an  automobile.  The  three  impersonal 
types  are  at  his  side  in  a  moment.  They  bend  over  him, 
put  silks  and  furs  under  his  head,  and  the  threateningly 
sedate  fellow  brings  a  glass  full  of  a  crimson  fluid  that 

235 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

suggested  infinite  things  to  the  fractured  Haggles.  A 
reporter,  a  surgeon,  and  an  ambulance  take  him  in  tow. 

In  three  days  they  let  him  leave  his  cot  for  the  convalescent 
ward  in  the  hospital.  He  had  been  in  there  an  hour  when  the 
attendants  hear  sounds  of  conflict.  Upon  investigation  they 
found  that  Raggles  had  assaulted  and  damaged  a  brother  con- 
valescent— a  glowering  transient  whom  a  freight  train  collision 
had  sent  in  to  be  patched  up. 

"What's  all  this  about.''"  inquired  the  head  nurse. 

"He  was  runnin'  down  me  town,"  said  Raggles. 

"What  town.?"  asked  the  nurse. 

"Noo  York,"  said  Raggles. 

Is  not  that  a  gaze  into  the  very  heart  of  the  city?  On 
the  surface,  cold,  hard,  oblivious,  greedy;  but  beneath 
the  surface,  kindly,  cooperative,  organized  for  every 
need,  efficient  for  instant  help,  human  to  the  core. 

Read  again  "The  Duel"  in  which  O.  Henry  declares 
his  theme  to  be  the  one  particular  in  which  "New  York 
stands  unique  among  the  cities  of  the  world."  Turn  once 
more  to  the  volume  called  "The  Voice  of  the  City," 
and  weigh  it  as  an  answer  to  the  query  propounded  in 
the  story  from  which  it  takes  its  name.  Beneath  the 
humour  of  stories  like  these,  beneath  the  cleverness  of 
phrase  and  the  fitness  of  epithet,  there  is  a  solid  sub- 
stratum of  thought,  a  determined  attempt  to  body  forth 
the  thing  as  it  really  is,  a  saturation  with  a  central 
idea,  unequalled,  we  believe,  by  any  other  writer  who 
has  tried  to  find  adequate  predicates  for  city  subjects. 
23G 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

But  before  O.  Henry  had  seen  New  York,  he  was  busy 
with  another  theme  that  was  to  occupy  much  of  his 
thought  in  later  years.  Some  one  said  to  him  shortly 
before  the  end:  "Your  heart  is  in  your  Western 
stories."  "My  heart  is  in  heaven,"  he  replied.  Had 
he  committed  himself  I  think  he  would  have  said:  "My 
heart  just  now  is  neither  in  my  Western  nor  my  North- 
ern nor  my  Southern  stories.  It  is  in  the  stories  that 
are  not  exclusively  any  one  of  the  three.  I  mean  the 
stories  that  try  to  contrast  the  South  with  the  North 
or  the  North  with  the  West  and  to  indicate  what  is 
separate  and  characteristic  in  each."  Here  again  both 
notebooks  bear  testimony  to  the  tenacity  with  which 
this  subject  laid  hold  upon  O.  Henry's  thinking.  The 
Columbus  notebook  contains  the  entry: 

Duplicity  of  Hargraves  * 
Munsey  8/16 

The  New  York  notebook  reads: 

Old     darkey — difference     between     Yankee    and     Southerner 

— N.Y.t 

That  there  is  a  difference  every  lover  of  his  country 
ought  to  be  glad  to  admit.  Time  was  when  we  called 
these  differences  sectional.     A  better  term  is  regional. 


*The  story  was  published  in  the  Junior  Munsey,  February,  1902. 

t See  "Thimble,  Thimble,"  published  in  Hampton's  Magazine,  December,  1908. 

237 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

Sectional  implies  not  only  difference  but  antagonism; 
it  recalls  oratory,  war,  and  politics.  Regional  differ- 
ences suggest  neither  actual  nor  potential  conflict.  Such 
differences  are  allies  of  literature.  They  make  for 
variety  in  unity  and  unity  in  variety.  Sectional  dif- 
ferences mean  "We  dislike  one  another."  Regional 
differences  mean  "We  are  unlike  one  another."  No- 
where does  O.  Henry's  insight  into  human  nature,  his 
breadth  and  depth,  his  pervasive  humour,  or  his  essen- 
tial Americanism  show  more  clearly  than  in  such 
stories  as  "The  Duplicity  of  Hargraves,"  "The  Cham- 
pion of  the  Weather,"  "New  York  by  Campfire  Light," 
"The  Pride  of  the  Cities,"  "From  Each  According  to 
His  Ability,"  "The  Rose  of  Dixie,"  "The  Discounters  of 
Money,"  "Thimble,  Thimble,"  and  "Best-Seller."  In 
each  of  these  he  stages  a  contrast  between  the  North 
and  the  South  or  the  North  and  the  W^est. 

The  task  was  not  an  original  one  but  he  did  it  in  an 
original  way.  Since  1870  American  literature  has 
abounded  in  short  stories,  novels,  and  plays  that  are 
geographical  not  only  in  locale  but  in  spirit  and  content. 
"If  the  reader,"  writes  Mr.  Howells,  "will  try  to  think 
what  the  state  of  polite  literature  (as  they  used  to  call 
it  in  the  eighteenth  century)  would  now  be  among  us, 
if  each  of  our  authors  had  studied  to  ignore,  as  they  have 
each  studied  to  recognize,  the  value  of  the  character 
and  tradition  nearest  about  them,  I  believe  he  will 
238 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

agree  with  me  that  we  owe  everything  that  we  now  are 
in  hterature  to  their  instinct  of  vicinage."  But  the 
"instinct  of  vicinage"  usually  confines  the  author  to  a 
single  place  or  a  single  section.  His  work  attempts  to 
portray  Western  life  or  Southern  life  or  New  England 
life,  but  one  at  a  time.  The  actual  contrasting  is  done 
by  the  reader,  who  compares  author  with  author  or 
story  with  story  and  passes  judgment  accordingly. 

A  notable  exception  is  "  The  Great  Divide."  William 
Vaughn  Moody  has  here  in  a  single  brief  play  not  only 
represented  the  West  in  Stephen  Ghent  and  New  Eng- 
land in  Ruth  Jordan  but  himself  outlined  the  contrast 
in  their  blended  careers.  "If  Massachusetts  and  Ari- 
zona ever  get  in  a  mix-up  in  there,"  says  Mrs.  Jordan, 
pointing  toward  Ruth's  heart,  "woe  be!"  They  do 
get  in  a  mix-up  in  there  and  every  American  is  the  gainer. 
Our  very  Americanism  and  sense  of  national  solidarity 
are  quickened  and  clarified  as  we  watch  the  struggle 
between  these  two  characters.  Their  union  at  last 
seems  to  assure  the  worth  of  our  constituent  parts  and 
to  prophesy  a  nationalism  that  will  endure. 

A  somewhat  similar  contest  is  fought  out  in  Owen 
Wister's  novel,  "The  Virginian."  Molly  Wood,  of 
Bennington,  Vermont,  and  the  Virginian,  of  Wyoming, 
have  more  than  a  purely  individual  interest.  They 
stand  for  two  kinds  of  regional  fidelity  that  have  gone 
into  the  very  fibre  of  American  life.     Mr.  Wister  even 

239 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

makes  the  Virginian  himself  essay  a  distinction  between 
the  East  and  the  West: 

Now  back  East  you  can  be  middling  and  get  along.  But  if 
you  go  to  try  a  thing  on  in  this  Western  country,  you've  got  to  do 
it  ivell.  You've  got  to  deal  cyards  well;  you've  got  to  steal  well; 
and  if  you  claim  to  be  quick  with  your  gun  you  must  be  quick, 
for  you're  a  public  temptation,  and  some  man  will  not  resist  trying 
to  prove  he  is  the  quicker.  You  must  break  all  the  Command- 
ments well  in  this  Western  country,  and  Shorty  should  have 
stayed  in  Brooklyn,  for  he  will  be  a  novice  his  livelong  days. 

And  over  Shorty's  dead  body  the  Virginian  remarks: 
"There  was  no  natural  harm  in  him,  but  you  must  do  a 
thing  well  in  this  country,"  meaning  in  Wyoming. 

Before  the  advent  of  O.  Henry,  however,  short  story 
writers  had  fought  shy  of  essaying  such  a  contrast  with- 
in the  narrow  limits  of  a  single  story,  a  contrast  for 
which  the  drama  and  the  novel  seemed  better  fitted. 
Bret  Harte  and  Hamlin  Garland,  Sarah  Orne  Jew^tt 
and  Mrs.  Wilkins-Freeman,  Thomas  Nelson  Page  and 
Joel  Chandler  Harris,  and  a  score  of  others  had  proved 
that  the  short  story  could  be  made  to  represent  as  large 
a  territory  as  the  novel.  But  as  an  instructed  delegate 
each  short  story  preferred  to  speak  for  only  one  con- 
stituency. When  it  tried  to  represent  two  at  the  same 
time,  there  was  apt  to  be  a  glorification  of  the  one  and 
a  caricature  of  the  other. 

It  is  one  of  O.  Henry's  distinctions  that  he  is  fair  to 
both.     The  Natiori*  called  attention  a  few  months  be- 

•For  December  2,  1909. 

240 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

fore  his  death  to  his  "genial  and  equal-handed  satire  of 
the  confronted  Northern  and  Southern  foibles."  West- 
ern foibles  might  also  have  been  included.  O.  Henry 
is  "genial  and  equal-handed"  not  only  in  the  charac- 
teristics selected  but  in  the  way  he  pits  characteristic 
against  characteristic,  foible  against  foible,  an  excess 
against  a  defect,  then  again  a  defect  against  an  excess. 
Art  and  heart  are  so  blended  in  these  contrasts,  wide 
and  liberal  observation  is  so  allied  to  shrewd  but  kindly 
insight,  that  the  reader  hardly  realizes  the  breadth  of 
the  theme  or  the  sureness  of  the  author's  footing. 

O.  Henry  was  not  a  propagandist,  but  one  cannot  re- 
read these  stories  without  feehng  that  here  as  elsewhere 
the  story  teller  is  much  more  than  a  mere  entertainer. 
He    has    suggested    a    nationalism    in    which    North, 
West,  and  South  are   to  play   their  necessary  parts. 
It  is  not  a  question  of  surrender  or  abdication;  it  is  a 
question  rather  of  give  and  take.     We  may  laugh  as  we 
please  at  Major  Pendleton  Talbot  of  "the  old,  old 
South"  in  "The  Duplicity  of  Hargraves."     He  erred 
no  more  on  one  side  than  did  Hargraves  on  the  other. 
That  Hargraves  should  not  have  known  that  he  was 
wounding  the  Major's  feelings  shows  a  want  of  tact  as 
onesided  on  his  part  as  was  the  Major's  excess  of  pride  on 
his. 

"I  am  truly  sorry  you  took  offence,"  said  Hargraves  regretfully. 
"Up  here  we  don't  look  at  things  just  as  you  people  do.     I  know 

241 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

men  who  would  buy  out  half  the  house  to  have  their  personality 
put  on  the  stage  so  the  public  would  recognize  it." 

"They  are  not  from  Alabama,  sir,"  said  the  Major  haughtily. 

And  every  reader  applauds.  But  the  applause  at  the 
end,  where  Hargraves  shows  a  tact  and  nobleness  be- 
yond what  we  had  thought  possible,  is  still  more  prompt 
and  generous.  The  keynote  of  the  story  is  not  section- 
alism but  reciprocity. 

There  is  the  same  absence  of  mere  caricature  in  "The 
Rose  of  Dixie."  In  his  New  York  notebook  O.  Henry 
made  the  entry:  "Southern  Magazine.  All  contribu- 
tors relatives  of  Southern  distinguished  men."  But 
the  story  as  it  shaped  itself  in  his  mind  became  not 
merely  a  burlesque  of  the  hopelessly  provincial  maga- 
zine but  a  contrast  between  authorship  by  ancestry  and 
publication  by  push.  Is  not  the  laugh  genially  distrib- 
uted between  Colonel  Aquila  Telfair,  of  Toombs  City, 
Georgia,  and  T.  T.  Thacker,  of  New  York.? 

Perhaps  in  "The  Pride  of  the  Cities"  the  reader  will 
be  inclined  to  think  that  the  man  from  Topaz  City, 
Arizona,  overplays  the  Westernism  of  his  part.  Per- 
haps he  does.  But  his  provocation  was  great.  The 
conversation,  you  remember,  had  opened  as  follows : 

"Been  in  the  city  long?"  inquired  the  New  Yorker,  getting 
ready  the  exact  tip  against  the  waiter's  coming  with  large  change 
from  the  bill. 

" Me ? "  said  the  man  from  Topaz  City.     "Four  days.    Never  in 
Topaz  City  was  you?" 
242 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

"!»"  said  the  New  Yorker.  "I  was  never  farther  west  than 
Eighth  Avenue.  I  had  a  brother  who  died  on  Ninth,  but  I  met 
the  cortege  at  Eighth.  There  was  a  bunch  of  violets  on  the  hearse, 
and  the  undertaker  mentioned  the  incident  to  avoid  mistake. 
I  cannot  say  that  I  am  famihar  with  the  West." 

But  each  theme  that  has  been  mentioned  is  but  an 
illustration  of  that  larger  quest  in  which  all  of  O.  Henry's 
stories  find  their  common  meeting-place— the  search 
for  those  common  traits  and  common  impulses  which 
together  form  a  sort  of  common  denominator  of  our 
common  humanity.  Many  of  his  two  hundred  and 
fifty  stories  are  impossible;  none,  rightly  considered,  are 
improbable.  They  are  so  rooted  in  the  common  soil 
of  our  common  nature  that  even  when  dogs  or  monu- 
ments do  the  talking  we  do  the  thinking.  The  theme 
divisions  that  we  have  attempted  to  make  are,  after  all, 
only  sub-divisions.     The  ultimate  theme  is  your  nature 

and  mine. 

It  is  too  soon  to  attempt  to  assign  0.  Henry  a  com- 
parative rank  among  his  predecessors.  We  may  at- 
tempt, however,  to  place  him  if  not  to  weigh  him.^  It 
was  Washington  Irving  who  first  gave  the  American 
short  story  a  standing  at  home  and  abroad.  There  is  a 
calm  upon  Irving's  pages,  an  easy  quiet  grace  in  his 
sentences,  an  absence  of  restlessness  and  hurry,  that 
give  him  an  unquestioned  primacy  among  our  masters 
of  an  elder  day.  He  was  more  meditative  and  less 
intellectual  than  Scott  but,  like  Scott,  he  was  essentially 

243 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

retrospective.  He  used  the  short  story  to  rescue  and 
re-launch  the  small  craft  of  legend  and  tradition  which 
had  already  upon  their  sails  the  rime  of  eld.  He  leg- 
endized  the  short  story. 

Poe's  genius  was  first  and  last  constructive.  It  was 
the  build  of  the  short  story  rather  than  its  historical 
or  intellectual  content  that  gripped  his  interest.  Poe's 
art,  unlike  that  of  Irving,  is  identified  with  no  particular 
time  or  place.  He  was  always  stronger  on  moods  than 
on  tenses,  and  his  geography  curtsied  more  to  sound 
than  to  Mercator  or  Maury.  But  in  the  mathematics 
of  the  short  story,  in  the  art  of  making  it  converge  def- 
initely and  triumphantly  to  a  pre-ordained  end,  in  the 
mastery  of  all  that  is  connoted  by  the  word  technique, 
Poe's  is  the  greatest  name.  The  short  story  came 
from  his  hands  a  new  art  form,  not  charged  with  a  new 
content  but  effectively  equipped  for  a  new  service.  In 
his  equal  exercise  of  executive,  legislative,  and  judi- 
cial authority,  Poe  standardized  the  short  story. 

Hawthorne  made  the  short  story  a  vehicle  of  sym- 
bolism. Time  and  place  were  only  starting-points  with 
him.  He  saw  double,  and  the  short  story  was  made  to 
see  double,  too.  Puritan  New  England,  New  England 
of  the  past,  was  his  locale;  but  his  theme  was  spiritual 
truth,  a  theme  that  has  always  had  an  affinity  for 
symbols  and  symbolism.  Hawthorne  allegorized  the 
short  story. 
244 


FAVOURITE  THEMES 

With  Bret  Harte  the  short  story  entered  a  new  era. 
He  was  the  first  of  our  short  story  writers  to  preempt 
a  definite  and  narrowly  circumscribed  time  and  place 
and  to  lift  both  into  literature.  Dialect  became  for  the 
first  time  an  effective  ally  of  the  American  short  story, 
and  local  colour  was  raised  to  an  art.  Though  Bret 
Harte's  appeal  is  not  and  has  never  been  confined  to 
any  one  section  or  to  any  one  country,  it  is  none  the  less 
true  that  he  first  successfully  localized  the  American 
short  story. 

A  glance  through  0.  Henry's  pages  shows  that  his 
familiarity  with  the  different  sections  of  the  United 
States  was  greater  than  that  of  any  predecessor  named. 
He  had  lived  in  every  part  of  the  country  that  may  be 
called  distinctive  except  New  England,  but  he  has 
not  preempted  any  locality.  His  stories  take  place  in 
Latin  America,  in  the  South,  in  the  West,  and  in  the 
North.  He  always  protested  against  having  his  stories 
interpreted  as  mere  studies  in  localism.  There  was 
not  one  of  his  New  York  stories,  he  said,  in  which  the 
place  was  essential  to  the  underlying  truth  or  to  the 
human  interest  back  of  it.  Nor  was  his  technique  dis- 
tinctive. It  is  essentially  the  technique  of  Poe  which 
became  later  the  technique  of  De  Maupassant  but  was 
modified  by  O.  Henry  to  meet  new  needs  and  to  sub- 
serve diverse  purposes.  O.  Henry  has  humanized  the 
short  story. 

245 


CHAPTER  NINE 

LAST    DAYS 

"I  CANNOT  help  remarking,"  wrote  Alexander  Pope 
to  a  Mr.  Blount,  "that  sickness,  which  often  destroys 
both  wit  and  wisdom,  yet  seldom  has  power  to  remove 
that  talent  which  we  call  humour."  In  O.  Henry's 
case  sickness  affected  neither  his  wit  nor  his  humour 
but  it  made  creative  work  hard  and  irksome.  There  is 
as  much  wit  and  humour  in  his  last  complete  story, 
*'Let  Me  Feel  Your  Pulse,"  or  "Adventures  in  Neu- 
rasthenia," as  in  any  story  that  he  wrote,  but  the  ending 
of  no  other  story  was  so  difficult  to  him.  Plans  for  a 
novel  and  a  play  were  also  much  in  his  mind  at  this 
time  but  no  progress  was  made  in  actual  construction. 

In  fact,  O.  Henry  had  been  a  very  sick  man  for  more 
than  a  year  before  his  death.  "He  had  not  been  well 
for  a  long  time,"  writes  Mrs.  Porter,  referring  to  the 
time  of  their  marriage,  "and  had  got  behind  with  his 
work."  He  did  not  complain  but  sought  creative 
invigoration  in  frequent  changes  of  environment. 
Early  in  1909,  however,  his  letters  begin  to  show  that 
writer's  cramp  was  with  him  only  another  name  for 
failing  health.  From  his  workshop  in  the  Caledonia, 
246 


LAST  DAYS 

Le  writes  to  Mr.   Henry  W.   Lanier,  who  was  then 
secretary  to  Doubleday,  Page  &  Company; 

February  13,  1909. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Lanier  : 

I've  been  ailing  for  a  month  or  so — can't  sleep,  etc.;  and  haven't 
turned  out  a  piece  of  work  in  that  time.  Consequently  there 
is  a  hiatus  in  the  small  change  pocket.  I  hope  to  be  in  shape 
Monday  so  that  I  can  go  to  Atlantic  City,  immure  myself  in  a 
quiet  hotel,  and  begin  to  get  the  "great  novel"  in  shape. 

March  16,  1909. 
It  seems  that  the  goddess  Hygiene  and  I  have  been  strangers 
for  years;  and  now  Science  must  step  in  and  repair  the  damage. 
My  doctor  is  a  miracle  worker  and  promises  that  in  a  few  weeks 
he  will  double  my  working  capacity,  which  sounds  very  good 
both  for  me  and  for  him,  when  the  payment  of  the  bill  is  considered. 

April  6,  1909. 
I  hope  to  get  the  novel  in  good  enough  shape  to  make  an  "ex- 
hibit" of  it  to  you  soon.  I've  been  feeling  so  rocky  for  so  long 
that  I  haven't  been  able  to  produce  much.  In  fact,  I've  noticed 
now  and  then  some  suspicious  tracks  outside  the  door  that  closely 
resembled  those  made  by  Lupus  Americanus.  Has  anything 
accrued  around  the  office  in  the  royalty  line  that  you  could  put 
your  finger  on  to-day? 

In  the  fall  of  1909,  broken  in  health  and  sufifering 
greatly  from  depression,  he  went  to  Asheville  to  be 
with  his  wife  and  daughter.  Here  on  the  fifth  story 
of  a  building  on  Patton  Avenue  he  set  up  his  workshop. 
Ideas  were  plentiful  but  the  power  to  mould  them  as  he 
knew  he  once  could  have  moulded  them  lagged  behind. 

247 


O.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

Many  themes  appealed  alternately  to  him  for  his  pro- 
posed novel  and  play  but  only  bare  outlines  remain. 
*'I  want  to  get  at  something  bigger,"  he  would  say. 
"What  I  have  done  is  child's  play  to  what  I  can  do, 
to  what  I  know  it  is  in  me  to  do.  If  I  would  debase  it, 
as  some  of  the  fellows  do,  I  could  get  out  something. 
I  could  turn  out  some  sort  of  trash  but  I  can't  do  that." 
To  Harry  Peyton  Steger  he  writes  from  Asheville, 
Novembers,  1909: 

My  Deak  Colonel  Steger:  I'd  have  answered  your  letter 
but  I've  been  under  the  weather  with  a  slight  relapse.  But  on 
the  whole  I'm  improving  vastly.  I've  a  doctor  here  who  says  I 
have  absolutely  no  physical  trouble  except  neurasthenia  and  that 
outdoor  exercise  and  air  will  fix  me  as  good  as  new.  I  am  twenty 
pounds  lighter  and  can  climb  mountains  like  a  goat. 

But  his  Little  Old  Bagdad-on-the-Subway  was  calling 
to  him  and  had  called  during  every  waking  hour  of  his 
absence.  He  had  made  his  last  attempt  to  write 
beyond  the  sound  of  her  voice.  In  March  he  was  back 
in  his  old  haunts.  To  Mr.  James  P.  Crane,  of  Chicago, 
he  writes.  April  15,  1910: 

I'm  back  in  New  York  after  a  six  months'  stay  in  the  mountains 
near  Asheville,  North  Carolina.  I  was  all  played  out — nerves, 
etc.  I  thought  I  was  much  better  and  came  back  to  New  York 
about  a  month  ago  and  have  been  in  bed  most  of  the  time — 
didn't  pick  up  down  there  as  well  as  I  should  have  done.  There 
was  too  much  scenery  and  fresh  air.  What  I  need  is  a  steam- 
heated  flat  with  no  ventilation  or  exercise. 
248 


LAST  DAYS 

The  end  was  near  but  not  much  nearer,  I  think,  than 
he  knew.  To  Mr.  Moyle  he  remarked  with  a  shrug 
of  the  shoulders  and  a  whimsical  smile:  "It'll  probably 
be  *  In  the  Good  Old  Summer  Time.' "  A  few  years  be- 
fore, the  question  of  the  after-life  had  come  up  casually 
in  conversation  and  O.  Henry  had  been  asked  what  he 
thought  of  it.     His  reply  was: 

I  had  a  little  dog 

And  his  name  was  Rover, 
And  when  he  died 

He  died  all  over. 

During  the  last  months  the  question  emerged  again. 
An  intimate  friend's  father  had  died  and  O.  Henry  was 
eager  to  know  how  he  had  felt  about  the  hereafter. 
*'For  myself,"  he  said,  "I  think  we  are  like  little 
chickens  tapping  on  their  shells." 

On  the  afternoon  of  June  3,  Mr.  Oilman  Hall  received 
a  telephone  message:  "Can  you  come  down  right  away. 
Colonel.?*"  His  friends  were  all  Colonel  or  Bill  to  him. 
He  had  collapsed  after  sending  the  message  and  was 
lying  on  the  floor  when  Mr.  Hall  arrived.  Dr.  Charles 
Russell  Hancock  was  sent  for  and  O.  Henry  was  taken 
at  once  to  the  Polyclinic  Hospital  on  East  Thirty- 
fourth  Street.  "You're  a  poor  barber.  Doc,"  he  whis- 
pered, as  Dr.  Hancock  was  brushing  his  hair;  "let  me 
show  you."     He  insisted  on  stopping  to  shake  hands 

^9 


0.  HENRY  BIOGRAPHY 

with  the  manager  of  the  Caledonia  and  to  exchange  a 
cheery  good-bye.  He  asked  that  his  family  be  sent 
for  and  then  quietly  gave  directions  about  the  disposi- 
tion of  his  papers. 

Just  before  entering  the  hospital  the  friend  who  was 
with  him,  anticipating  his  aversion  to  the  newspaper 
publicity  inseparable  from  his  pen-name,  asked  what 
name  should  be  announced.  "Call  me  Dennis,"  he 
said;  "my  name  will  be  Dennis  in  the  morning."  Then 
becoming  serious  he  added:  "No,  say  that  Will  S. — 
Parker  is  here."  The  taking  again  of  the  old  initials 
and  the  name  "Will,"  said  O.  Henry's  friend,  was  a 
whim  of  the  moment  and  a  whim  of  the  most  whimsical 
of  men,  but  it  was  "prompted  by  the  desire  to  die  with 
the  name  and  initials  given  him  at  birth  and  endeared 
by  every  memory  of  childhood  and  home." 

"He  was  perfectly  conscious  until  within  two  min- 
utes of  his  death  Sunday  morning,"  said  Doctor  Han- 
cock, "and  knew  that  the  end  was  approaching.  I 
never  saw  a  man  pluckier  in  facing  it  or  in  bearing 
pain.  Nothing  appeared  to  worry  him  at  the  last." 
There  was  no  pain  now  and  just  before  sunrise  he  said 
with  a  smile  to  those  about  him:  "Turn  up  the  lights; 
I  don't  want  to  go  home  in  the  dark."  He  died  as  he 
had  lived.  His  last  words  touched  with  new  beauty 
and  with  new  hope  the  refrain  of  a  concert-hall  song, 
the  catch-word  of  the  street,  the  jest  of  the  department 
250 


LAST  DAYS 

store.  He  did  not  go  home  in  the  dark.  The  sun- 
light was  upon  his  face  when  he  passed  and  illumins 
still  his  name  and  fame. 

After  the  funeral  in  the  Little  Church  Around  the 
Corner,  a  woman  was  seen  to  remain  alone  kneeling  in 
prayer.  She  was  one  whom  O.  Henry  had  rescued  from 
the  undertow  of  the  city  and  restored.  "I  have  al- 
ways believed,"  says  a  gifted  writer,  "that  it  was  not 
by  accident  that  a  wreath  of  laurel  lay  at  the  head  of 
his  coflSn  and  a  wreath  of  lilies  at  his  feet." 


THE    END 


INDEX 


"Adventures    in    Neurasthenia."    See 

"Let  Me  Feel  Your  Pulse." 
"Afternoon  Miracle,  An,"  99,  170 
Ainslees  Magazine,  172,  175 
Alberti,  Seflor,  193 
"Alias    Jimmy    Valentine."     See    "A 

Retrieved  Reformation" 
Allen,  James  Lane,  11,  195 
American  Magazine,  The,  10,  217 
"Anatomy  of  Melancholy,"  76,  90 
Anderson,  Charles  E.,  118,  121 
"Arabian  Nights,"  The,  76,  90 
Armstrong,  Paul,  193 
Artemus  Ward,  134,  178 
"Artist^An."  209 
Atlantic  Monthly,  The,  11,  68 
Auerbach,  B,.  90 

Bagley,  Worth,  35 

Bangs,  John  Kendrick,  127 

Barry,  John  H.,  16 

Beall,  Dr.  W.  P.,  106,  109,  113 

Beauregard,  General  P.  G.  T.,  58 

"Best-Seller,"  238 

"Bexar  Scrip  No.  2692,"  119 

Bill  Nye,  127,  130,  133,  134 

Bingham,  Col.  Robert  ,  82 

"Birth  of  a  Nation,  The,"  62 

"Blackjack  Bargainer,  A,"  170 

"Blind  Man's  Holiday,"  138 

Bookman,  The,  117,  137,  170,  173,  175, 

194,  217,  221,  232 
Boston  Traveller,  The,  61 
Bray,  Sir  Edward,  24 
Bray,  Thomas,  24 


"  Brickdust  Row,"  223 
Brockman,  Ed.,  110 
Brown,  John,  64 
Browning,  Robert,  207 
Bulla,  J.  R.,  39 
"Buried  Treasure,"  58,  119 
Burnside,  General  A.  E.,  59 
Bynner,  Witter,  8 

"Cabbages  and  Kings,"  194-199,  201 
"Caballero's  Way,  The,"  78,  99 
"Cactus,  The,"  169 
Caine,  Hall,  184 
Caldwell,  David,  52-56 
"Caliph  and  the  Cad,  The,"  206 
"Caliph,  Cupid,  and  the  Clock,  The," 

206 
Campion,  Miss  Marguerite,  46 
Canby,  Henry  Seidel,  11 
Carbry,  Mrs.,  25 
Carter,  Anne  Hill,  24 
Cartland,  Fernando  G.,  21 
Caruthers,  Dr.  Eli  W.,  54 
"Champion  of  the  Weather,  The,"  238 
Charles  IL  23 

"Cherchez  La  Femme,"  138 
Chicago  Herald,  The,  61 
Church  Society,  39 
Cole,  C.  C,  30 
Cole,  Dr.  J.  L.,  30 
Coleman,  Miss  Sallie.     See  Mrs.  Sara 

Coleman  Porter. 
Coleman,  Mrs.  Thaddeus,  190 
Collins,  Wilkie,  90 
"Comedy  in  Rubber,  A,"  208 

253 


INDEX 


"  Complete  Life  of  John  Hopkins,  The," 

213 
Concept,  The,  78 
Concord  Monitor,  The,  61 
Connors,  Jimmy,  151-152,  192 
Conrad,  Joseph,  145 
Cooke,  John  Esten,  30,  91 
Cosmopolitan,  The,  116,  192 
Cox,  General  John  D.,  58,  59 
Crane,  James  P.,  126,  128,  248 
Crane,  Stephen,  11 
Craven,  Dr.  Braxton,  41 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  23 
Cullen,  Clarence  L.,  181 

Daily  Express,  The,  96 
Daily  Record,  The,  42 
Daniel,  Martitia,  34 
Daniels,  D.,  117,  127 
Davies,  Sir  John,  205 
Davis,  Jefferson,  58,  59 
Davis,  Richard  Harding,  194 
Deems,  Charles  F.,  28 
Detroit  Free  Press,  The,  5,  123 
Dial,  The,  192 
"Dick  Lightheart,"  77 
Dick,  Reuben,  36 
Dick,  Judge  Robert  P.,  60 
Dick,  Mrs.  Robert  P.,  43 
Dickens,  Charles,  12,  62,  90,  91,  219,  222 
Dillard,  John  H.,  44 
"  Discounters  of  Money,  The,"  238 
Dixon,  Joe,  105 
Dixon,  Thomas,  62 
"Duel,"  The,  236 
Duffy,  Richard,  172,  173,  175,  176 
Dumas,  Alexander,  90 
"Duplicity  of  Hargraves,    The,"   170, 
237,  238,  241 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  56 
Elgin,  John  E.,  96 
"Elsie  in  New  York,"  219 

2^4 


Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  14 
"Enchanted  Kiss,  The,"  128,  170,  210 
Estes,  Miss  Athol.     See  Mrs.  William 

Sydney  Porter. 
Evans,  C.  N.  B.,  31 
Everybody's  Magazine,  169,  172 
Ewing,  John,  194 
"Extradited  from  Bohemia,"  188 

Father  Ryan,  75 

"Ferry  of  Unfulfilment,  The,"  208 

Field,  Eugene,    134.      See  poem  on  p. 

132 
Fletcher,  John,  134 
"Fog  in  Santone,"  128,  170 
Folger,  Peter,  38 
"Fool-Killer,  The,"  31 
Forman,  Henry  James,  11 
Foulcher,  A.,  192 
"Four  Million,  The,"  77,  200,  233 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  38 
"From  Each  According  to  his  Ability," 

238 
"From  the  Cabby's  Seat,"  208 
Froude,  J.  A.,  224 
"Furnished  Room,  The,"  231 

Galsworthy,  John,  10 

Garland,  Hamlin,  240 

Garnett,  Edward,  11 

"Gentle   Grafter,  The,"  21,  147.  149, 

201 
George  Eliot,  83,  229 
"Georgia's  Ruhng,"  119,  162,  170 
Ghent,  W.  J.,  10 
"Gift  of  the  Magi,  The,"  122 
Gilmer,  John  A.,  60 
"Gu-I  and  the  Habit,  The,"  208 
Goodloe,  Daniel  R.,  22 
Graham,  E.  K.,  31 
Gray,  Julius  A.,  112 
"Great  Divide,  The,"  239 
Green,  Anna  Katharine,  195 


INDEX 


"Green  Door,  The,"  209.  213 
Greene,  General  Nathanael,  48 
"Guilty  Party,  The,"  220,  221 

Hale,  Edward  J.,  31 

Hall,  Frank,  93 

Hall,  Gilman,  172,  173,  175,  176,  181, 

182,  214,  233 
Hall,  Dr.  J.  K.,  88,  93,  94,  113 
Hall.  Mrs.  J.  K.,  106,  109,  111 
Hall,  Lee,  93,  95-100 
Hall,  Mrs.  Lee,  98 
Hall,  R.  M.,  93,  101,  114,  119,  125,  135. 

162 
HaU,  Mrs.  R.   M.,   52,  98,  100,    106, 
119 

Hampton  s  Magazine,  237 
Hancock,  Dr.  Charles  Russell,  249,  250 
"Handbook  of  Hymen,  The,"  101 
"Harbinger,  The,"  208 
Harper's  Weekly,  46,  193 
Harrell,  Joe,  114 
Harris,  Joel  Chandler,  90,  240 
Harte,  Bret,  13,  90,  195,  240,  245 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  11.  13,  195,  244 
"He  Also  Serves,"  184 
"Heart  of  the  West,"  201 
"Hearts  and  Hands,"  169 
Heartt,  Dennis,  31 
Helper,  Hinton  Rowan,  21 
Henderson,  Archibald,  32 
Herbert,  Dr.  Pinkney,  17 
"Hiding  of  Black  Bill.  The."  115 
"Higher  Abdication,  The."  102,  128 
Hill,  William  Laurie,  31,  54 
Hobbs,  Alexander,  153 
Hogg,  James,  125 

Houston  Daily  Post,  The,  122,  129-134 
Howells,  W.  D.,  11,  54,  238 
Hugo,  Victor,  90 
Humphreys,  Henry,  36 
"Hygeia  at  the  Solito,"  104,  128,  170 
"Hypothesis  of  Failure,  The,"  87 


IlustraciSn  EspaHola  y  Americana,  La, 

193 
Irving,  Washington,  13,  46,  243 
Irwin,  Will,  18 

"Jack  Harkaway,"  77 

Jackson,  Andrew,  50 

James,  Henry,  187 

James,  William,  11,  208,  209 

"  Jefif  Peters  as  a  Personal  Magnet,"  231 

Jennings,  Al,  139-141,  149 

Jennings,  Frank,  139 

"Jesse  Holmes,"  31 

Jewett,  Sarah  Orne,  11,  240 

"Jimmy  Samson."     See  "A  Retrieved 

Reformation" 
"  Jimmy  Valentine."     See  "  A  Retrieved 

Reformation." 
"John  Burleson,"  62 
Johnston,  General  Joseph  E.,  58,  59 
Johnston,  Mary,  195 
Johnston,  Col.  R.  M.,  129,  130 
Junior  Munsey,  The,  237 

"Katie  of  Frogmore  Flats."     See  "The 

Pendulum" 
Kilpatrick,  General  H.  J.,  59 
King,  Edward,  96,  97 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  11,  12,  13 
Kreisle,  Louis,  141 
Kreisle,  Mrs.  Louis,  141 

Lancaster,  Robert  A.,  Jr.,  23 

Lanier,  Henry  W.,  247 

Lea,  Rev.  Solomon,  29 

Leacock,  Stephen,  9,  231 

Lee,  Jesse  M.,  96 

Lee,  Light  Horse  Harry,  24 

Lee,  Robert  E.,  24,  58 

"Let  Me  Feel  Your  Pulse,"  17,  246 

"Lickpenny  Lover,  A,"  217 

Lieberman,  Elias,  227 

Lindsay,  Nicholas  Vachel,  6,  217 

London  Magazine,  The,  192 

%5fi 


INDEX 


London  Spectator,  The,  195 
Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  51,  195 
"Looking  Forward,"  131 
"Lost  Blend,  The,"  87 
"Lost  on  Dress  Parade,"  206 
"Lotus  and  the  Bottle,  The,"  198 
Lytton,  Bnlwer,  90 

McClure's  Magazine,  170 

"Madame  Bo-Peep,  of  the  Ranches," 

189,  191 
Maddox,  John,  118 
"Madison  Square  Arabian  Night,  A," 

85 
"Makes  the  Whole  World  Kin,"  84 
"Making  of  a  New  Yorker,  The,"  227. 

229,  234-236 
"Man  About  Town,"  116 
"Marionettes,  The,"  170 
Mark  Twain,  12,  48,  90,  195 
Marx,  Karl,  10 
Maupassant,   Guy   de,  9,  12,  83,  204, 

209,  245 
Maurice,  Arthur  Bartlett,  173,  217,  232 
Mebane,  John  A.,  35 
Memminger,  C.  G.,  59 
"Miracle  of  Lava  Cafion,  The,"   124, 

169 
"Missing  Chord,  The,"  104,  128 
Moliere,  4 

"Moment  of  Victory,  The,"  66 
"Money  Maze,"  170 
Moody,  William  Vaughn,  239 
Morehead,  Gov.  John  Motley,  27,  56 
Morley,  Christopher,  216 
Mosley.  A.,  123 
Moyle,  Seth,  185,  249 
"Mr.     Valentine's    New    Profession." 

See  "A  Retrieved  Reformation." 
"Municipal  Report,  A,"  75,  222,  230, 

231 
Munro,  George,  89 
Murphey,  Archibald  D.,  56 

S56 


Nation,  The,  12,  240 

New  Jersey  State  Gazette,  49 

"New  York  by  Campfire  Light,"  238 

New  York  Evening  Post,  The,  216 

New  York  Sun,  The,  9,  181 

New  York  Times,  The,  206 

New  York  World,  The,  199,  200 

Norris,  Frank,  230 

North  American  Revieio,  The,  12 

"No  Story,"  170 

"On  Behalf  of  the  Management,"  229 
O.  Henry,  each  story  an  autobiography, 
3-7;  birth,  8;  the  O.  Henry  myth,  8-9; 
tributes  to  his  genius,  9-13;  the 
people's  writer,  13-15;  maternal 
grandfather,  18-22;  maternal  grand- 
mother, 22-25;  mother,  25-33;  pater- 
nal grandfather,  33-38  paternal 
grandmother,  38-41;  father,  41-45 
Greensboro,  North  Carolina,  46-66 
early  incidents  and  influences,  66-71 
education,  71-80;  in  his  uncle's  drug 
store,  80-89;  his  reading,  89-91;  goes 
to  Texas  with  Red  Hall,  93-95;  Red 
Hall,  95-100;  on  the  La  Salle  County 
ranch,  100-114;  in  Austin,  114-129; 
in  Houston,  129-137;  goes  to  Hon- 
duras, 137-139;  in  Central  America, 
139-142;  trial  and  conviction  in 
Austin,  143-146;  in  prison,  146-171; 
takes  pen-name  O.  Henry,  169;  goes 
to  Pittsburg,  172;  goes  to  New  York, 
173-176;  in  New  York,  176-202; 
themes  and  technique,  203-206;  "turn- 
ing the  tables  on  Haroun  al  Raschid," 
206-207;  stories  of  habit,  207-209; 
"  Wliat's  around  the  corner,"  209-216; 
stories  of  working  girls,  216-226; 
city  stories,  226-236;  regional  stories, 
237-243;  comparison  with  prede- 
cessors, 243-245;  failing  health,  246- 
247;  goes  to  Asheville,  247-248;  re- 


INDEX 


turns  to  New  York,  248-249;  in  the 
Polyclinic  Hospital,  249-250;  death, 
250-251 

"Options."  201,  202 

Outlook,  The,  162 

Page,  Arthur  W..  105 

Page,  Thomas  Nelson,  240 

Partlan,  Miss  Anne,  185-187 

"Passing  of  Black  Eagle,  The,"  208 

Pater,  Walter,  204 

Patmore,  Coventry,  225 

Patriot,  The,  19,  25,  26 

Peck,  Judge  Epaphroditus,  33 

"Pendulum,  The,"  208 

"Penny  Plain  and  Twopence  Colored," 

89 
Phelps,  William  Lyon,  12 
Picayune,  The,  169 
Pitkin,  Walter  B.,  203 
Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  9, 11, 13,  83, 195,  204, 

244,  245 
Pope,  Alexander,  246 
Porter,  Algernon  Sidney,  father  of  O. 

Henry,  40-44 
Porter,  Mrs.  Algernon  Sidney,  mother 

of  O.  Henry,  25-33,  171 
Porter,  Clark,  41,  80,  81,  83,  87 
Porter,  David  Weir,  40 
Porter,  Jane,  90 
Porter,   Miss  Lina,  0.  Henry's  aimt, 

40,  71-77 
Porter,  Mrs.  Sara  Coleman,  O.  Henry's 

second  wife,  67,  173,  180,  182,  190- 

191,  246,  247 
Porter,   Margaret  Worth   (Mrs.  Oscar 

E.  Cesare),  O.  Henry's  daughter,  125, 

141,  154,  158-166,  231,  247 
Porter,  Shirley  Worth,  40 
Porter,  Sidney,  paternal  grandfather  of 

O.  Henry,  18,  33-38 
Porter,   Mrs.   Sidney,   paternal  grand- 
mother of  O.  Henry,  33,  38-41 


Porter,  William  Sydney.     See  O.  Henry. 

For  spelling  of  Sydney  see  pages,  18, 

169 
Porter,     Mrs.     William     Sydney,     O. 

Henry's  first  wife,  120-123,  141-143 
Portland  Advertiser,  The,  62 
Prescott,  W.  H.,  14 
"Pride  of  the  Cities,  The,"  238,  242 

Read,  Opie,  195 

Reade.  Charles,  90,  91 

Reece,  Joe,  42 

Reed,  John  S.,  10 

"Renaissance  of  Charleroi,  The,"  138 

"Retrieved  Reformation,  A,"  150-152, 

191-194,  206 
Roach,  G.  P.,  120,  121,  154,  172 
Roach^  Mrs.  G.  P.,  120,  121,  146,  156, 

162.  172,  201 
"Roads  of  Destiny,"  201,  202,  211 
"Roads  We  Take,  The,"  212 
Rolling  Stone,  The,  119,  125-128,  135 
"Rolling  Stones,"  106,  201 
Rollins,  Hyder  E.,  37,  137 
"Romance  of  a  Busy  Broker,  The,"  208 
"Rose  of  Dixie,  The,"  65,  238,  242 
"Rouge  et  Noir,"  170 
"Round  The  Circle,"  169 
Rumer,  J.  B.,  153 

Schenck,  Judge  David,  39 
Schofield,  General  John  M.,  59 
Scott,  David,  37,  42 
Scott,  Walter,  90,  243 
Scribner's  Monthly,  96 
Searles,  Stanhope,  194 
"Seats  of  the  Haughty,"  128 
Shakespeare,  206,  218.  225 
Sherman,  General  W.  T.,  58 
"Ships,"  198 

Shirley,  Abia,  maternal  grandmother  of 
0.  Henry,  22,  25 

257 


INDEX 


Shirley,  Beatrix,  24 

Shirley,  Daniel,  22 

Shirley,  Nancy,  24 

Shirley,  Sir  Robert,  23 

Shirley,  Sir  Thomas,  23 

"Shoes,"  198 

Sigourney,  Mrs.  Lydia  Huntly,  30 

Simms,  William  Gilmore,  30 

"Sisters  of  the  Golden  Circle,"  121 

"Sixes  and  Sevens,"  201,  202 

Sloan,  James,  35 

-Smart  Set,  The,  190 

Smith,  J.  D.,  79 

Smoot,  Dr.  R.  K.,  121 

Southern  Woman's  Magazine,  66 

Spielhagen,  F.,  91 

SpofiFord,  A.  R.,  22 

"Squaring  The  Circle,"  233 

Steger,  Harry  Peyton,  116,  140,  201,  248 

"Stephen  Hoyle,"  62 

Stephens,  Alexander  H.,  59 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  13,  89 

Stonewall  Jackson,  91 

"Strictly  Business,"  201,  202,  231,  233 

Stuart,  General  J.  E.  B.,  91 

Sullivan,  J.  Clarence,  183 

Swaim,  Lyndon,  22,  27 

Swaim,  Mary  Jane  Virginia,  maiden 
name  of  O.  Henry's  mother.  See 
^'Irs.  Algernon  Sidney  Porter 

Swaim,  William,  maternal  grandfather 
of  O.  Henry,  18-22 

Tarkington,  Booth,  195 
Tate,  Mrs.  Henry,  29 
Tate,  Thomas  H.,  66,  69,  79,  89 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  100 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  62,  90 
"Thimble,  Thimble,"  237,  238 
"Third  Ingredient,  The,"  185,  186 
Thomas,  Dr.  John  M.,  147,  154,  183 
Thoreau,  Henry  David,  11 
Times-Democrat,  The,  169 

258 


Tourgee,  Albion  Winegar,  60-65 
Tourneur,  Maurice,  193 
"Transients  in  Arcadia,"  206 
"Trimmed   Lamp,  The,"  201,  224-226 

233 
Truth,  4,  123 
"Two  Renegades,"  65 

"Unfinished  Story,  The,"  185,  221-222, 

225 
Ujhto-Date,  5 

"Venturers,  The,"  68,  210,  214,  216 
Villon,  Francois,  12 
"Virginian,  The,"  239 
"Voice  of  the  City,  The,"  201,  232,  233, 
236 

Walker,  Mrs.  Letitia,  59 

Warren,  Samuel,  91 

Washburn,  B.  E.,  194 

Weaver,  Rufus  W.,  66 

Weir,  Dr.  David  P.,  43 

Wells,  H.  G.,  10 

"While  the  Auto  Waits,"  206 

"Whirligigs,"  162,  201,  202,  233 

"  Whistling  Dick's  Christmas  Stocking," 
138,  170 

Whitman,  Walt,  11 

Wiley,  Dr.  Calvin  H.,  54 

Wilkins-Freeman,  Mrs.,  240 

Williard,  Dr.  George  W.  149,  150,  192 

Wilson,  A.  F.,  231 

Wister,  Owen,  239 

"Witches'  Loaves,"  119 

Woodrow,  Mrs.  Wilson,  179 

Worth,  Daniel,  21 

Worth,  Dr.  David,  34,  38 

Worth,  John,  38 

Worth,  Gov.  Jonathan,  34,  38,  55,  61 

Worth,  Ruth  Coffyn,  paternal  grand- 
mother of  O.  Henry.  See  Mrs. 
Sidney  Porter. 

Writer,  The,  185 


THE  COUNTBY  LIFB  PRESS 
GARDEN  CITT,  N.  T. 


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